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Report from the Flight Deck:
2025/26: AN EXTRAORDINARY SEASON – SPEEDBUMPS AND ALL!
As we look back on TBTB’s 47th season, it is truly astounding to reflect on how far we’ve come over these past nine months. Sometimes growth creeps along at an imperceptible pace. Other times, it sneaks up and surprises. And following a 2024/25 season of slow and careful creeping, it is extremely gratifying to experience a sudden surge – as if the turbo charge has kicked in and rockets you swiftly forward.
Such was the case with our 2025/2026 season.
After focusing last season’s efforts on administrative expansion, we were primed and ready to devote this season to a robust calendar of programming. All our work focused on developing and performing new and original material, with most of it being offered to our audiences free of charge! We set out to produce five projects during our 47th season – and I’m so proud to report that we accomplished all we challenged ourselves to fulfill:
- In August, TBTB and The Tank, NYC, co-produced a staged reading of Abbey Joan Burgess’ new play Disposable Bodies, featuring an outstanding integrated company of disabled and non-disabled artists.
- In October, TBTB presented 4Warned: Four Original Short Plays by Peter Mark. We were deeply honored to showcase Peter, a TBTB veteran, who has written for our company over several decades, and present four of his latest original works, all written and developed for our artists.
- In November, we presented our fourth Playmakers’ Intensive – HPI4: Transcendence Approaching – featuring twelve brand new original short works. All the plays were written over a 3-week period and performed live both online and in person by a company of over 50 artists. Our Playmakers’ Intensive continues to be one of our most popular and successful programs to date, and we are extremely proud to be able to have provided countless opportunities for hundreds of artists over the years, creating over 300 original short works since the Intensive began in 2011!
- From March 21 through April 11, we were elated to produce our first mainstage short play festival in over nine years with Transcendency Rising: Short Plays about Defying Limitations. Our festival featured the world premiere of five short plays and five original monologues, including new works by Cate Allen, Kathryn Grant, Lyle Kessler, John Patrick Shanley, and Jeff Tabnick. Transcendency Rising was our most ambitious work to date and featured a cast of over 22 artists. It was truly gratifying to share such bold new works and the talents of our artists with our audiences.
After a year of developing and presenting new works featuring an integrated ensemble of both disabled and non-disabled artists, we concluded our season by coming full circle.
- On May 8th and 9th, TBTB rounded out our 2025/26 season by presenting a workshop reading of Wizziwig, another new and truly outstanding play by Amy Claussen. For this project, TBTB collaborated with Queens Theatre over the six-day workshop, which culminated with two free performance readings – In Manhattan and in Queens.
Without exaggeration, our 2025/2026 season was ambitious, relentless and thoroughly gratifying!
Of course, no season arrives without its share of turbulence and shortfalls. Over the past months, we experienced several unexpected challenges and have been compelled to swiftly adjust course to keep moving ahead. Like a racecar being pushed through its paces, there are always adjustments that need to be made to ensure optimal performance. And the speedbumps we have had to traverse will only serve to pave a smoother, more efficient path for us in the seasons to come.
But we do not wish to dwell on past challenges. Rather, we wish to celebrate the overwhelming success of this season – which you have helped to create!
I hope you will allow us to crow a bit over our 47th season in this issue of BARRIER BREAKING NEWS by sharing the many positives of our growth during this remarkable year. Ultimately, our success would not be possible without your unwavering support, partnership, and treasured friendship. You are the angels on our shoulders, and we are forever grateful to have you in our corner.
As we all navigate the many challenges our world continues to hurl at us, we hope you will read the stories in this issue and find a glimmer of inspiration within the hard work, love, and dedication of our artists. Hope truly does spring eternal and compels us to race boldly ahead – with success traveling alongside us, propelling us bravely forward.
Nicholas Viselli,
Artistic Director
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TBTB Continues Short Play Festival Tradition
by Steve Asher
TBTB presented its first short-play festival in nine years from March 21 through April 11, 2026, at New York’s Theatre Row. Entitled Transcendency Rising: Short Plays About Defying Limitations, this festival followed previous incarnations by presenting new works by both well-known and mid-career playwrights. Transcendency Rising featured new short plays by Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winner John Patrick Shanley ("Doubt", "Moonstruck"), Tony nominated playwrights Lyle Kessler ("Orphans") and Bekah Brunstetter (Broadway's "The Notebook", TV's "This Is Us"), as well as Cate Allen, Kathryn Grant, and Jeff Tabnick. Between the plays were monologues written by Adam Linn, Dipti Mehta, Tatiana G. Rivera, and Marc Winski.
As with all TBTB productions, the evening featured a dynamic company of 22 performers with and without disabilities, embodying the company’s enduring belief that artistic excellence and disability are not mutually exclusive, but mutually enriching. As with all TBTB productions designed for accessibility and inclusion, every performance was fully captioned (with captions incorporated into the set design) and utilized audio description throughout.
Nicholas Viselli, TBTB’s Artistic Director, said of the production:
“This evening brought together some of the most important voices in American theatre to explore what it means to transcend adversity and defy the limits of the human experience. These plays remind us that the human spirit is inherently expansive. At Theater Breaking Through Barriers, we believe the stage is a place where possibility expands, where barriers dissolve, and where audiences are invited to see the world and each other with renewed clarity and compassion.”
To read more about the festival, its goals and successes, read this story published in New York Weekly: https://nyweekly.com/entertainment/beyond-limits-theater-breaking-through-barriers-and-the-art-of-transcendence/
| (L to R): Ellis Gage & Carey Cox | |
TBTB Collaborates with Queens Theatre on the WIZZIWIG Workshop/Reading
by Tucker Salovaara
TBTB recently collaborated for the first time with Queens Theatre to put on a full-length reading of Amy Claussen's new play, WIZZIWIG. The show, directed by Evan T. Cummings, was held on May 8th and 9th, 2026, and featured a wicked trio of actors. Carey Cox, Ellis Gage, and Andrea Terrasa. The ensemble had incredible chemistry and worked beautifully together to create the complex relationships of their characters. The company had only one week of rehearsals for this reading, but their hard work paid off, and the reading was a huge success. Last season, TBTB Artistic Director, Nicholas Viselli directed a 15-minute excerpt from WIZZIWIG during Queens Theatre's short play festival. TBTB and Queens Theatre worked to expand on the play’s development since that initial performance, which was evident in this most recent show. The reading was extremely well-received during its two performances, both here in Manhattan and at Queens Theatre and the artists were very gratified with the progress they made on the development of this outstanding new play.
WIZZIWIG is about two people, both with acquired disabilities, who seek belonging. Through their common struggles, they find acceptance with each other. The script is thought provoking and extremely moving. We were extremely grateful to collaborate with Queens Theatre on WIZZIWIG and look forward to its future growth and success.
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TBTB AND EPIC PLAYERS EXPLORE COLLABORATION ON THE WORLD PREMIERE OF 504: THE MUSICAL
by Ann Marie Morelli
Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB) Artistic Director Nicholas Viselli is currently in discussions with Epic Players Artistic Director Aubrie Therrien to form a groundbreaking collaboration on a new production of 504: The Musical.
Epic Players’ mission of championing neurodiverse talent closely aligns with TBTB’s longstanding commitment to disability inclusion in the arts. Both organizations share the belief that disability is never a limitation to artistic excellence, creativity, or professional achievement.
Written by Abbie Goldberg and Mason McDowell, 504: The Musical tells a fictionalized account of the historic 1977 San Francisco sit-in, during which more than 100 disability rights activists occupied the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare building for 26 days.
The protest became the most prominent of many demonstrations across the United States demanding the federal government sign and enforce regulations under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 was the first U.S. civil rights law to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities and paved the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law in 1990.
The courage and determination of these early disability rights advocates helped create opportunities for organizations like TBTB and Epic Players to thrive today. Their legacy continues to inspire our work, and we remain deeply grateful for their contributions to advancing equality and inclusion.
This collaboration promises to be a landmark event, marking TBTB’s first fully staged musical production and Epic Players’ first Off-Broadway run.
Stay tuned to our social media channels for updates as this exciting project develops.
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Experiencing TBTB and Helping it Grow from 3000 Miles Away
by Abrianna Sigel
Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of supporting TBTB’s grant writing and development remotely from Los Angeles, California. Following the completion of my undergraduate degree in North Carolina and a master's program in Edinburgh, Scotland, I moved back home to Massachusetts in the fall of 2024. TBTB and I connected while I lived on the East Coast, but I soon began making preparations for a move to Los Angeles. My plan for this major life-change was immediately met with support and excitement from the company, and I now feel especially grateful for a specific element of TBTB’s accessibility practices: virtual performances!
This year, I was able to witness the Hybrid Playmakers Intensive from start-of-season to final product, which culminated in a set of virtual performances. Virtual performances eliminate many barriers to entry for our community, while also offering a unique medium for creatives to explore, pushing the bounds of how lighting, space, and digital framing can be utilized unconventionally as storytelling tools. Ever impressed by the creativity, passion, and adaptability of Theater Breaking Through Barriers’ artists, I look forward to seeing the production of more incredible work in the 2026/20227 season :)
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MY FIRST “BEHIND THE SCENES” EXPERIENCE AT TBTB
by Jo Dedolph
When you go to see a show, you will likely see mysterious people, dressed all in black, wearing headsets, slinking around in the darkness between scenes. That, dear reader, is a production assistant. They are the ones who move furniture to smoothly transition from scene to scene, who prepare props, and do many other backstage jobs to count. When I told people I was working as a production assistant (PA) on Transcendency Rising with TBTB, on a show featuring many actors with disabilities, many people responded with trepidation, confusion, and bias. This apprehension was in sharp contrast with the reality of my experience. In reality, being a PA on a job including actors with disabilities was not any more difficult than the production assistant job is normally. In collaboration with the incredible stage management team, (deck SM Stevie Allen, calling SM Nina Sadowski Smith, and PA Karl Jingco), we were able to carefully choreograph our every backstage move. Here, move a chair from stage left to stage right. There, give an actor a hand up the ramp. Here, help a blind/low vision actor to their spot onstage. Page the curtain. Move the bed. Move out of the way of a wheelchair user who needed room to move backstage. We simply incorporated disability into our backstage rhythm. With just a minuscule amount of consideration, listening, and paying attention, working with people with disabilities becomes just... working. In fact, the Transcendency Rising cast are some of the hardest working, most respectful, thoughtful, and considerate actors that I’ve ever worked backstage with. As a PA, often no one looks twice at you or even asks your name: best believe this was not the case when it comes to the Transcendency Rising cast and crew. So, my advice to anyone entering a workspace with people with disabilities? Just take an extra moment to consider. Ask them questions. Remember that their disability is just a tiny part of their vast web of life. Recognize the limitless range of the human experience, and enter the situation with flexibility and a sense of humor, and you’ll have a blast!
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