A few months ago I performed a portion of my solo play A Little Potato and Hard to Peel for a morning assembly at a high school in Nashville, TN. I had to cut the show to 25 minutes and felt good about the cutting and thought it had gone well with the audience. It was a tough audience; a high school in a morning assembly is never the easiest audience, but they were with me. They were laughing and I felt a good energy. The assembly ended and the kids were shuffling out for the remainder of their day. I started to put away my props. “Excuse me sir,… read more →
Last year, I was at a bar in New York City talking shop with a few other actors and artists from my alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. We were talking about creating our own work and brainstorming on ways we could collaborate together. I soon found out about the 48-hour Disability Film Challenge. It was created to encourage artists with disabilities to collaborate with each other and other working artists without disabilities to make fun and engaging short films. I went back to the UNC-G folks I was talking with at the bar and pitched the idea that we should work on making a film for… read more →
I am so grateful for this New Year and for what the future holds! I’m excited that my speaking manager, Kate Holgate, will be launching a brand new website soon for Alliance for Success Speaker Management and for the additional exposure I’ll receive to even more meeting planners. My wish is that my work continues to remind audiences that we all have differences, but it is in the acceptance of our own differences that allow us to see our shared humanity in others. I saw this quote from Bill Nye recently and it has stayed with me, it is something we need to remind ourselves of these days. “We are one… read more →
I am standing at the forefront of one of the biggest changes in my life. In the next few days I will become a father. The impact of this change is unimaginable for me right now. Don’t get me wrong, I am so excited but in all honesty I’m also very scared. Intellectually, I know this is normal. All the books and blogs I’ve been reading have reassured me but I’ve been asking, “What is it that is making me scared?” Is it the fear I will fail my child? Is it the fear I will lose my identity? The fear of life as I know it changing? It is… read more →
Over 7,000 individuals submitted their materials to the ABC Discovers Talent showcase this year; the 7,000 were cut down to 70, then to 35 and finally to 14. Six of the last seven years I’ve been one of the 7,000 to submit my materials. Six of those years I was one of the 6,986 individuals to not be cast in the showcase but this year I was one of the fourteen individuals to be cast. I’ve pondered this over the past few weeks. Did I do anything different? Was I a much worse actor last year? Or was it just the right time? The day before my audition this year… read more →
A few weeks ago I was volunteering at a camp for young kids with limb loss, Camp No Limits. I love coming to camp because I meet amazing individuals who refuse to accept limitations no matter what their circumstances. One of the favorite games in camp is “Rubber Chicken Baseball.” Here are the rules: one team will throw the rubber chicken to the fielding team. They will then form a tight circle and their “runner” will run around the circle, each full trip around the circle equals a run or point. The fielding team will retrieve the thrown rubber chicken and quickly form a single file line. Once the line… read more →
I saw a story on PBS last week about a young man who was born without his right hand, very similar to me, who is hoping to be the first human to receive a full hand transplant. You can read the story here. I felt for this young man, his insecurity and frustration in having to adapt to do daily tasks was completely recognizable. I began to think, what if this surgery wasn’t difficult? What if it was a little out patient shindig with little to no complications? Would I want it? Would my 12-year-old-middle-school self want it? I don’t want it and I would tell my 12-year-old self he… read more →
Nobody likes to lose. We all want to win, we want to lift our arms in victory and hold up the trophy. It seems almost everything in our culture is a competition. Everywhere you look someone is trying to dance off, sing off, cook off, or date off the competition. The winners are celebrated and the losers are shuffled off with their heads hanging. It is very risky to put ourselves out there and risk the pain and frustration that comes from not being number one. But is there another way to look at it? Can we find a “win” in the middle of a loss? I just experienced this… read more →
April has been, among other things, “limb loss awareness” month. As a kid I was keenly aware of my limb loss but didn’t have a mentor whom I saw going through the same experience. My childhood days were spent trying to figure out how I fit into the world and working hard as I could to find my place on the playground, on the bike trails or on the ball field. There was also Ty Bullard’s back yard. This vast oasis of freshly cut grass was the home field for football games for the boys of the Ellis Point neighborhood. Ty and his friends were older than I was and… read more →
I am very excited to begin my new speaking keynote and blog, Navigating a Two-Handed World…Single-Handedly. Back in 1998 I was working for the Phoenix Theatre for Children in Columbus, OH. I would tell these stories of my life growing up with one-hand and of my hilarious and entertaining family. The artistic director suggested I take these stories and write a one-person play. It took a few years but I created my first solo play, The Quest and began a journey that has led me to this moment. Over the past 12 years I have created three solo plays and began using aspects of my solo performance to create a… read more →