Disability Futures

The Kennedy Center's acclaimed production of Side Show, about conjoined sisters at the circus, is rumored to be mulling a move to Broadway. The next season of American Horror Story will, similarly, be about a freak show. And in recent months there has been a proliferation of representations of disability on stage and screen. Consider just the most popular:

• The heartthrob amputee (Ansel Elgort) at the center of a teenage love story in the smash movie The Fault in Our Stars
• The correctional officer with an amputation (Matt McGorry) in love with a prisoner in the Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black
• A woman with a disfiguring facial scar (Sutton Foster) on a journey to be healed in the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Violet
• The Cripple of Inishman (Daniel Radcliffe) in the acclaimed Broadway play of the same name

What do all these characters have in common? They are played by actors who are not disabled in real life.