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“I was born with a disability, but disability does not consume my life.”
Gregg Mozgala’s website header makes the first-time reader do a double-take. Underneath a photograph of a handsome, muscular man with piercing eyes and a devilish smirk are the words “Triple Threat: Actor, Writer, Cripple.”
'An Indomitable Performer'
The New York City-based performer has been praised throughout the theatre world in no uncertain terms. The Washington Post said he "lights up" the stage.” Backstage magazine called him an “indomitable performer.” In his hometown, the New York Metro News called him “the hottest thing currently visible on a New York stage,” while the New York Times called him “sexually charged, [a] languorously animalistic presence.”Many of these reviews are referring to Diagnosis of a Faun, a 2009 dance production in which Mozgala played a mythical woodland creature being examined for treatment by a modern-day doctor. The production centers around Mozgala’s unique physical condition, which works to the advantage of the performance. According to Backstage’s review, “Mozgala’s uneven but focused gait imbues the role with an otherworldly physical cadence that is both apt and engaging.”Throughout the course of the piece, the other actors do their best to execute the same primal, twisting gestures done effortlessly by Mozgala’s faun character. It was a complete reversal of the usual demand for a disabled actor to adapt to the “normal” movements of the rest of a cast.Audiences were mesmerized by the production; Mozgala’s life was changed by it.
'I Have Felt Things That Were Completely Closed Off to Me'
Prior to 2009, Mozgala’s work centered mainly within Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, a company that features actors with a wide range of disabilities. He embraced his way of moving despite the attention it can draw when he's down the street. Sometimes it didn’t bother him, but sometimes it did. When he felt self-conscious about his propensity to fall down, he would turn it into a dramatic tumble in order to elicit laughter and sympathy. It was a trick he’d employed since high school.[socialObu hashtags="IDefineMe" shorturl="http://ow.ly/Hcvxg" ]Meet Gregg Mozgala: The Oshman Firm's first "I Define Me" award winner.[/socialObu]But being discovered by choreographer Tamar Rogoff changed all that. She proposed creating a dance piece specifically around his natural body movements… but to do that, she wanted to test the limits of what Mozgala thought his body could do. For eight months, the two worked to build the performer’s strength and range of motion, helping him to step beyond the movement patterns that had become habitual to him.In the end, they told the Times, Mozgala had to reject the belief that cerebral palsy simply closed off certain kinds of motion to him. And as they worked together, Mozgala says his brain began to connect with parts of his body in a way that he’d never experienced.“I have felt things that I felt were completely closed off to me for the last 30 years,” he said. “The amount of sensation that comes through the work has been totally unexpected and is really quite wonderful.”
Making History
Since Diagnosis of a Faun, Mozgala has appeared in plays from the classical repertoire to those written by emerging playwrights, embodying themes both universal and specific to the disability community. His performance as Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice helped draw out the play’s pulsing theme of marginalization, showing a slew of character types—Jews, Muslims, Hispanics and blind people—who existed on the fringes of culture in Elizabethan England. He has received rave reviews for performances in emerging theatre, regional festivals and even opera.Last year, Mozgala founded his own theatrical company, The Apothetae, which aspires to merge disabled performers into the theatrical mainstream. In an interview with the Brooklyn Commune, Mozgala said:“It is The Apothetae’s goal to serve as an incubator for new works about disability in the hope that an entirely new canon of plays will be created. Disabled people have existed since the dawn of time. We have always been here, yet that history is largely unknown. Through our work we will make that history visible; our contributions, our struggles, our triumphs and yes, even our failures.”For his courage, tenacity and creativity, The Oshman Firm is pleased to introduce Gregg Mozgala as our “I Define Me” award winner for January 2015.Image Credit: Greggmozgala.com
