CASTING INEQUALITY TO THE WINDS
Jamila Main’s play Butterfly Kicks could have been their own coming-of-age story, if only they’d realised it at the time. They speak with Equity Magazine about their experiences as a performer from both queer and disabled perspectives.
Equity Mag: Butterly Kicks seems like an incredibly personal work. How and why did it come to be? How much of it is your own story?
Jamila Main: I wrote Butterfly Kicks while I was processing my own queerness in acting school. By creating queer characters and helping them navigate their sexuality, I was able to understand my own.
I didn’t know I was queer until I was at uni, and I wondered what high school might have looked like if I had known then, so I wrote a play where I could explore the joys and obstacles I might have encountered.
I got a grant to do a creative development of the play and did a bunch of readings in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne to get further feedback on the script. The play was published in 2019 and programmed in the 2020 season at Rumpus in Adelaide, finally hitting the Rumpus stage in May this year (thanks, COVID).
EM: How did you approach queer and disabled representation within the play?
JM: It has always been non-negotiable to me that the onstage roles were played by queer actors. Queer actors still face homophobia and prejudice in the performing arts, and are uniquely qualified to tell our own stories, bringing nuance, detail and joy that cannot be imitated by non-queer actors. The process of developing, rehearsing and performing this play has given queer actors a safe, precious environment to explore, relish and embody queerness.
I wasn’t originally cast in our season at Rumpus, but with a last-minute reshuffle I ended up stepping into the lead role.
Disability representation is woefully neglected, particularly in roles that aren’t written as disabled, and it meant so much to me to represent disabled and chronically ill queer people onstage.
It’s important that disabled actors are considered for both disabled and non-disabled roles because we have decades of casting inequality to catch up on. The world currently actively excludes disabled people from public life, and I believe theatre and film play crucial roles in normalising, educating and celebrating disability, and I am thrilled to have provided disabled and chronic-illness representation in Butterfly Kicks.
EM: Please tell us about your ground-breaking access guide for Butterfly Kicks.
JM: I know that most of the time theatres and shows aren’t as accessible as they could be and I wanted ours to be as accessible as we could make it. My guide aims to provide all the information on accessing the venue that disabled, ill and neurodivergent people need to identify if they are to attend the show. Most of the time, we have to do this research ourselves, which is exhausting and painful when it so often ends in ableism and inaccessibility.
My guide saves audiences precious spoons (disabled term for energy), as well as demonstrating my to disabled, ill and neurodivergent audiences. It includes details, such as how the seating process will work, that can be overlooked as part of disabled access. It is rare for mainstage companies to have such a comprehensive access guide, let alone a small-medium or independent company. I hope this sets a new culture of access and inclusion in the indie theatre sphere.
EM: Why was this access guide so important to you?
JM: As a disabled person, I am often excluded from shows and venues − as both a performer and an audience member − based on their inability to provide adequate access and readily available information about their access. It was important that I use my position of power as producer and access coordinator for Butterfly Kicks at Rumpus to pursue a new standard of access for indie theatres, to benefit all disabled artists and audiences, including myself.
EM: How much work was involved in its creation? Do you have any advice for those looking to produce something similar?
JM: Hours and hours of unpaid research and labour went into this guide, particularly with brain fog and chronic pain often making it difficult to proofread. It was a mountain of work, but now I’m well placed to make guides for my future shows.
I strongly encourage anyone wanting to produce their own guide to budget for them and pay a disabled person who works in disability and access to create it.
Disabled people are statistically more likely to be unemployed or underpaid, and continue to be excluded from the Australian stage and screen industries. It is everyone’s responsibility to generate more jobs for disabled people where we can, including making access guides, and particularly in powerful creative and performance roles.
Jamila Main is a trained actor, self-taught playwright and emerging artistic leader based on Kaurna land in South Australia. Their play Butterfly Kicks was a winner at the 2018 Queer Short Story Award, Feast Festival and Writers SA and finalist at the 2020 Queer Playwriting Award. Jamila is a co-chair of Equity’s Diversity Committee.
