Brother Rick Curry
Brother Rick Curry — Able ActorRetta Blaney
For an actor, being rejected for a TV commercial is disappointing. But when an actor never even gets to audition because he is laughed out of the building, the hurt is devastating.
And then it is life-changing.
Brother Rick Curry S.J., 56, was that actor. In 1977 he went to try out for a mouthwash commercial. His fellow graduate students at New York University were earning high fees doing commercials, so even though acting as a profession wasn't his goal, he decided to give it a go. He received permission from his Jesuit provincial superior and memorized the script, because turning pages is hard for him.
He told the receptionist at the studio he was there to audition for the commercial, and she laughed. She thought her boyfriend was playing a trick on her. The idea that a man born without a right forearm could be in a television commercial was too much for her. For the first time in his life, the then-34-year-old Curry saw himself as disabled.
"It was really a terrible blow to me," he says.''My parents hadn't raised me that way. I thought, what do people do who have greater disabilities than mine?"
He pondered that question while finishing his doctoral dissertation on 17th-century Jesuit theater. St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, encouraged students to practice what we now call visualization when they read the Gospels, to see themselves as stable boys in Bethlehem or in other roles."I thought, why not apply the principles of 17th-century Jesuit theater for the disabled?"
Such was the beginning of the National Theater Workshop of the Handicapped.
For an actor, being rejected for a TV commercial is disappointing. But when an actor never even gets to audition because he is laughed out of the building, the hurt is devastating.
And then it is life-changing.
Brother Rick Curry S.J., 56, was that actor. In 1977 he went to try out for a mouthwash commercial. His fellow graduate students at New York University were earning high fees doing commercials, so even though acting as a profession wasn't his goal, he decided to give it a go. He received permission from his Jesuit provincial superior and memorized the script, because turning pages is hard for him.
He told the receptionist at the studio he was there to audition for the commercial, and she laughed. She thought her boyfriend was playing a trick on her. The idea that a man born without a right forearm could be in a television commercial was too much for her. For the first time in his life, the then-34-year-old Curry saw himself as disabled.
"It was really a terrible blow to me," he says.''My parents hadn't raised me that way. I thought, what do people do who have greater disabilities than mine?"
He pondered that question while finishing his doctoral dissertation on 17th-century Jesuit theater. St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, encouraged students to practice what we now call visualization when they read the Gospels, to see themselves as stable boys in Bethlehem or in other roles."I thought, why not apply the principles of 17th-century Jesuit theater for the disabled?"
Such was the beginning of the National Theater Workshop of the Handicapped.
4 comments:
Seems like a good guy!
he is so great. he started the theatre group to help anyone with disabilities. what a great way to deal with rejection!
oh, and he also makes bread!!!
I think I saw the bread thing somewhere...probably the internet...I forget
cool!
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