Five individual artists, in collaboration with Tellin' Tales Theatre, are creating Transplant, an original musical that foregrounds the world of people with disabilities, using adaptive and inclusive casting, design, and direction.
Our Mission
Transplant aims to validate experiences of disability and illuminate better understanding in those without by:
Advocating for the talent and professionalism of people with disabilities onstage.
Busting myths spread through stereotyped representation.
Placing people with disabilities back in the driver's seats of their own stories.
Reframing public understanding of disability as socially-constructed.
Expanding thinking about disability relationships, work, and sexuality.
“We are a purposefully intergenerational team with diversity of gender, sexuality, and ability. This shouldn’t be a new approach, but to our knowledge, it is.
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Our journey (so far!)
The majority of the artistic team meets during a collaboration with Lyric Opera’s Chicago Voices Project in 2016.
Summer 2016: Telling' Tales Theatre and the majority of the artistic team meet during a collaboration with Lyric Opera's Chicago Voices.
Winter 2017: The artistic team is inspired to create a full-length musical to showcase the disability experience.
Winter 2017: Tellin' Tales partners with Always Greener to make the musical a reality!
Fall 2017: We host content-gathering workshops where members of the disability community join us for story-staring, discussion, and artistic brainstorming.
Summer 2018: Noa/h Fields joins the artistic team as composer & lyricist.
Fall 2018: Always Greener holds its first reading of the of the musical at Strawdog Theater.
Winter 2019: After more rewrites, we workshop Always Greener with actors and our director.
Spring 2019: We hold our first professional auditions for our sneak-peak preview performance of Always Greener.
Spring 2019: During the first week of May, we premiere an abbreviated version of Always Greener for industry professionals and Tellin’ Tales supporters.
Summer 2020: Workshop production! Details coming soon.
Thank you to our supporters!
Ken Brinkman Beth Ann Bryant-Richards Liz Cruger Paris DePaepe Stephen Donart Suzi Herrmann Carol Jungman Debra Kerr Rachel Kraft Suzanne & Stephen Machtt Mega MacNichols-Mahon Matthew Nelson Edward Oppenheimer Rosemany Postula Carrie Sandahl Barbara Schectman Robin Simon Rosemary Stuebi Eileen Tell Cheryl Turek Carl Ulaszek Ward Wilson Robin Wold Nancy Woodruff
And many others!