Room By The Sea
A reimagining of the Icarus myth, Room By The Sea centers Boy, a disabled teenager in exile on a mythic island, who dreams of flying like the birds he sees out the window. For thousands of years, the story of Icarus has been invoked as a cautionary tale. “Too close to the sun,” is what people remember. But it’s his father, Daedalus’ contraption that fails the test of earthly rules.
John Guerra’s retelling of the myth interrogates the forms imprisonment takes for disabled people and what freedom, by one’s own design, could look like. The characters navigate hostile architecture, paternalism, isolation, institutionalization, class, and immigrant status – all societal obstacles that intersect with the modern day Disabled community.
Room By The Sea’s cast and creatives with the AccessCollabs team running through a table read. Photo: John Barrack
AccessCollabs worked directly with Guerra to create the tale through this lens of Disability Justice, finding multiple facets of Boy’s inner life, giving him agency and complexity, and giving specificity to the disabled child/parent relationship. We then led a three-part training session with our production teams on Disability-Centric Theatre, exploring what true access means for story, cast, crew, and audiences. Our constant insistence is that access is an opportunity for creative engagement.
We are so proud to have secured creative open captioning, integrated with the set and boosting access at every show, and every performance will be audio-described (12 headsets per show). There will also be a sensory-friendly performance and a performance with ASL interpretation.
Special Performance dates:
March 1, 3PM: ASL Interpreted Performance & Accessibility in Theater Post-Show Talkback with Doris Baizley (Other Voices at Mark Taper, P.H.*reaks)
March 8, 3PM: Sensory Friendly Performance
March 9, 7PM: ASL Interpretation