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Championing silenced and unheard voices in theater

For Theatre Professor Emerita Victoria Lewis, advocating for the disabled is both a passion and deeply personal. Refused admission into a distinguished New York City theater program because of her disability, Lewis subsequently became a pioneer for the depiction of disability on stage.

“Disability is a social problem rather than an individual problem,” asserts Lewis in her chapter, “A Great and Complicated Thing: Reimagining Disability,” in the book Casting a Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative (Routledge, 2019). “There are deep stereotypes regarding the disabled engrained in both elite and popular culture, and in order to create new stories about disability, we need to adjust the way we’re viewing the issue.”

Before entering academia, Lewis served as artist-in-residence at Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum for 22 years. During her tenure, she founded and directed the “Other Voices Project”—the only professional playwriting program for writers with disabilities in the regional theatre.

She then returned to school, completing her Ph.D. in theater at UCLA in 2000 and joining the Redlands community shortly after. “I was impressed by the level of instruction and the interdisciplinary approach that prevails on campus,” she explains. “Redlands is a living and learning community where I can work with colleagues across disciplines—it’s thrilling and precisely the reason I wanted to be on a college campus.”

Lewis, who retired in 2020, is grateful for the University’s commitment to the arts. “I treasure the investment that Redlands has made in the performing arts—it’s very personal here,” she notes. During her teaching years, she was constantly inspired by Redlands’ students. “They’re amazing—curious, self-motivated, imaginative, and fearless, and we all benefit from our involvement with them.”

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