On July 26 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. And since 2015, to commemorate that date, July is Disability Pride Month. While those with disabilities should be celebrated all year long, this month in particular we honor the struggles and triumphs of those in the community.
In the musical Camelot at Lincoln Center Theater Marilee Talkington is one of two disabled actors in the company. Anthony Michael Lopez, a congenital above-knee amputee, who has a prosthetic leg, plays knight Sir Dinidan. And Talkington, who is legally blind, is King Arthur’s first love, the brilliant scientist Morgan Le Fey.
Talkington was a senior at UC San Diego when she reluctantly stumbled into an acting class. A psych major/math minor she was “on the six year plan” hoping to enter grad school and pursue a career in research. “I was very interested in why people do things,” says Talkington. “And I just needed to get my GPA up a little bit so I could apply to grad school.”
Her friend had suggested an acting class. But Talkington had no interest. “I looked for every other class that I could take but they were all full,” she says. “The only class available was acting.”
By the second day of the course, when she started working on her first monologue, Talkington knew that her life had forever changed. “Something in my body experienced that I had permission to be something a little bit more,” says Talkington who always had a flair for doing voices and characters.
Talkington was born with rod-cone dystrophy, which her mother also has. She does not have central vision and her peripheral vision has been degenerating over time. “Being disabled my whole life, also being a woman, I was battling with feeling very confined, like I had to prove myself all the time,” says Talkington. “And something about that first acting class was a way in which I got to break out of those feelings. I took that class and thought, I think this is what I’m supposed to do.”
After graduating, she began pursuing acting. “I moved to San Francisco, took night and summer classes and just marinated in it.” At her first theater audition she was given pages of a script for a cold reading. “The script was too small for me to read and I asked if there were photocopiers around that I could enlarge and I didn’t have an iPhone,” says Talkington. After walking for hours, she found a real estate agency that let her borrow a copy machine. She enlarged the script as best she could.
At the audition she held the script, which was still hard for her to read, close to her face. The director asked why she was holding it so close. “I said, ‘I can’t see the script. But I’m here. I’m ready to go and very excited.’” The director replied, ‘if you can’t see the script, then you don’t belong on stage.”
For Talkington, who was sent away from the audition that experience was a turning point. “I took three buses home. It could have been a moment where I just walked away because I didn’t see anybody like me and still don’t see anybody like me,” she says. “I thought, maybe I’m not meant to do this. This is going to be hard.”
After much reflecting about what she really wanted, she had her answer. “I thought, if the world isn’t going to have a vision for me, then I have to create a vision for myself,” says Talkington. “I’m supposed to act. I have no idea how. I don’t have anyone to look to, but there’s something in me that knows that this is what I’m supposed to do.”
From there her ferocity grew stronger. Talkington took every training opportunity she could.”It’s hard because training has always been designed for people who have full vision. So I had to figure out my own way in every single class,” says Talkington who was usually asked, “will you be able to do what the normal students can do? It wasn’t, how can we create access? It was how can you adjust yourself to fit in because clearly you’re the problem, not us.”
Talkington ultimately got accepted into the MFA program at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T). Despite all the challenges she graduated from the program. Throughout she had to remind herself that she was not the problem. Looking back through her current lens she would have told herself “you are not the thing that needs to be fixed. There is wholeness, value and worthiness in you already,” she says. “If people don’t see that, it may not be something you may be able to change in the moment. But if you feel your wholeness, there will be a path that will lay itself out for you.”
The struggles continued after she got her degree and moved to New York City. She couldn’t get an agent. The auditions weren’t coming. But she found a way to take agency over her career by continuing to create her own work. Even while she was in grad school she wrote and performed her solo show Truce where she played 22 characters, half of who are blind.
“I spent years writing, directing and designing,” says Talkington who ultimately got roles on NCIS, New Amsterdam, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Extrapolations, SEE, The Home and more. She has also performed extensively in theaters in New York and around the country. Talkington can also play a fully sighted person. “I live in between worlds,” says Talkington who early on taught herself how to look at people in the face. “If you meet me, you’re going to say, “she’s legally blind. I don’t get it.”But I can lean into fully sighted or totally blind.”
This past January it was announced that Talkington joined the cast of Camelot on Broadway playing Morgan Le Fey. She marvels at Le Fey’s courage. “It’s tough now, but she was a single mother during a time that would have been brutal for her and her safety— just making money and supporting a son on her own,” says Talkington.
A new take on the classic Lerner & Loewe musical, the book, which is based on the original by Alan Jay Lerner, was adapted by Aaron Sorkin with direction by Bartlett Sher. “Aaron has written her as a scientist so she is a brilliant mind who’s also a channeler,” says Talkington. “Even though Aaron took out the magic. She’s still a sorceress.”
The cast also includes Andrew Burnap as Arthur, Phillipa Soo as Guenevere, and Jordan Donica as Lancelot Du Lac, Dakin Matthews as Merlyn/Pellinore, Taylor Trensch as Mordred, Fergie Philippe as Sir Sagramore, and Danny Wolohan as Sir Lionel.
Talkington and Lopez’s roles were not written to be played by disabled actors. They are non disability specific. “Anthony has one leg and he is playing a knight who sword fights,” says Talkington who founded Access Acting Academy which offers actor training for blind and low vision adults and kids. “We should be everywhere, not just playing the blind characters or amputees. We should be exactly what Camelot and Lincoln Center are doing, considered for every single role.”
Talkington is keen to point out that it would still be powerful for a blind actress to play Morgan Le Fey who isn’t able to “fake” being sighted. “For other blind folks who can’t “fake it” all that passion and complexity would still have been there,” she says. “There’s so many blind actors I know that could have knocked it out of the park. And you would’ve been able to tell that they were blind. They might have even had to use a cane on stage. There are blind scientists out there.”
At the very first preview of Camelot Talkington got a DM from a young person with low vision sharing that they flew in to see Camelot and her performance. “I’ve been told that I can’t be on stage because I’m low vision and gave up,” they wrote. “And then I saw you on stage. And I’m going to go after it now because now I know it’s actually possible.”
That gave Talkington a newfound perspective on what being in Camelot meant to her. “To receive that on the first preview. I thought being Morgan Le Fey—this gorgeous character with agency, sensuality, intellect and power in this incredible show it’s not just for me. It is for others that see that not only can a legally blind person be on stage, but they can be on stage in a character like this.”
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