Disability Representation Matters

“Being autistic and legally blind, growing up and through high school, I had no friends… But my grandmother had a subscription to Seattle Children’s Theatre and when I was sitting in the dark theatre watching a show, I felt seen, I felt silently heard, and really sitting in that audience was the one time I felt understood.”

— Mickey Rowe, first autistic actor to play Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

When people with disabilities lead, perform, and create, the stage becomes a place of belonging—not merely a place of spectacle. My role, as a non-disabled facilitator, isn’t to speak for anyone. It’s to make space, share tools, and step back so artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and autistic artists can tell their own stories and shape their own representations.

Representation sets norms, influences policy, and shapes how neighbors, teachers, employers, and audiences treat disabled people in everyday life. Below, I look at two widely known portrayals—Becky in Glee and Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time—and then turn to a local example to ask: What does ethical, humanizing representation look like in practice?

When “Cute” Isn’t Harmless: Becky Jackson in Glee

What’s good:Glee cast Lauren Potter (an actor with Down syndrome) as Becky Jackson (a character with Down syndrome)—a meaningful choice that placed a multi-faceted disabled character in a mainstream hit.

Where it falters: The episode “A Very Glee Christmas” recasts How the Grinch Stole Christmas, placing Becky as a “rein-dog.” This taps into two harmful tropes:

1. Cuteness as Infantilization. Cultural critics (e.g., Lori Merish) show how “cute” aesthetics carry baby-coded features (big eyes, rounded forms). When applied to adults—especially adult women with disabilities—“cute” can collapse adult/child boundaries, subtly denying adult agency, sexuality, and authority. We don’t grant “cute” subjects full power over their choices.

2. Conflation with animals. Performance history is littered with dehumanizing frames—from 19th-century “freak shows” to “missing link” exhibits—that align disabled people with animals. Putting Becky in a literal animal role, however playful, echoes a long, stigmatizing lineage that we must name and reject.

Why it matters:Even well-intended comedy can reinforce paternalism—nudging audiences to love and “care for” disabled adults while still withholding power and respect.

“Overcoming” and the Neurotypical Gaze: The Curious Incident…

The Broadway production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time dazzled audiences—and it is also deeply complicated.

Common narrative trap: Christopher’s arc leans into the American myth of “transcendence”—overcoming disability to achieve greatness. This popular storyline treats disability as a problem to be shed, rather than a lived identity with diverse expressions and needs.

Aestheticized autism for neurotypical audiences: Through lights, sound, and choreography, the production stylizes “what it’s like to be autistic”. Yet the Broadway iteration did so without autistic artists in core creative or performing roles. The result? A neurotypical lens crafting a “socially acceptable brand” of autism—overemphasizing traits like emotion-reading difficulty, “robotic” affect, and savantism. Those choices flatten a spectrum and lean into non-human/othered imagery.

Progress worth noting: Since Broadway, Mickey Rowe (quoted above) became the first autistic actor to play Christopher (Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage, 2017). Progress is possible when autistic artists lead.

A Local Case: Encore Studio for the Performing Arts

In Wisconsin, Encore Studio creates work by and about disabled artists, including IDD and autistic performers. Their productions contest stigmas and center lived experience—a powerful counterweight to mainstream misrepresentation.

A fair critique: As scholar Matt Hargrave notes in Theatres of Learning Disability, community-rooted work often gets judged with “good… considering” qualifiers—a backhanded standard that reads disability as the reason something isn’t “polished.” When work foregrounds participants’ stories, critics sometimes dismiss it as “more for the performers than the audience.”

A better lens: Hargrave (building on Janet Wolff) proposes an “aesthetics of uncertainty”—evaluating art within its own contexts and communities, not against a single hegemonic benchmark. That opens room to value process, ethics, and access alongside form.

My practice takeaway: When I facilitate, I release my own aesthetic control and embrace that “uncertainty.” The work belongs to the artists creating it.

Why Community-Led Theatre Matters

As James Thompson argues in Performance Affects, community and participatory theatre invites face-to-face recognition: the actor’s presence becomes “a call to respect their humanity.” That’s the opposite of the “rein-dog” joke or the spectacularized “autistic experience” built without autistic collaborators.

Bottom line: Representation matters most when artists with disabilities define it—on their terms, in their bodies, with their voices and choices.

Practical Guidelines for Ethical Representation

• Nothing about us without us. Hire disabled artists in creative leadership, performance, and paid consulting roles—early and often.

• Audit the tropes. Watch for infantilization (“cute”), inspiration porn, conflation with animals, robotic/savant clichés, and “overcoming disability” narratives.

• Design for agency. Ensure performers have real creative control and consent over story, image, and process.

• Measure differently. Use an aesthetics of uncertainty: judge by context, community, process, and access, not a single aesthetic yardstick.

• Resource the work. Accessibility, time, and equitable pay are artistic needs, not add-ons.

Call to Action

If you’re an educator, producer, or community leader: center disabled voices in your next project. Build a process that is collaborative, accessible, and accountable. The result isn’t just better representation—it’s better theatre.