What Happened to Ginger Smith: Artistry

This article is about being a disabled artist

and discovering one’s Autism in the Theatre Industry.

Contains candid, heavy content.

(Subscribe to Substack

for the What Happened to Ginger Smith

Radio-Storytelling Series

coming soon.)

. . . . .

I am a disabled artist
Always been a disabled artist.
Whether you can ‘see’ my disabilities or not.

Born with a nervous system disability,
processing differences, and a unilateral seeing impairment.

Autistic.

Lost my hearing when I got COVID, working it back.

. . .

The majority of my life, theatre and dance were one of the only ways I could process the world.

Like for many artists, the draw is based on deep impulses — often spiritual, NeuroBiological — needs, attachments, loves.

Even just a rehearsal schedule, damnit — is how the world...makes sense.

‘Stand on number 6.’

‘Dance your heart out.’

Or a piece of audition advice that started unmasking my Autism:
’Never be more than who you are or less than who you are’.

(Please note: the latter is not ‘safe’ for everyone or in every moment.)

In theatre, tongue stretches aren’t just valued — they’re foundational.

Theatre was an Autistic lifeline.

. . .

For 30 years, I lived as someone ‘trying to make it on Broadway’ in an authoritarian-like

sonata of

instinct, connection, desperation,

and a drive to live.

If you've ever been bitten by the 'theatre bug,’
you know what I mean 🙂

. . .

Did my first musical when I was 6.

Was the "Star Search" Junior Vocalist winner for my state at age 9.

Professional acting debut at 10,
the next year working with Academy / Tony noms.

Not sure if I was particularly "talented";

I was authentic,

uninhibited by neuronormative standards,

and found an access and freedom within my body

and from white-suburban life that made no sense.

Our community theatre was one of the only places I saw people who didn't look like me. Not enough people.

. . .

Worked in the summers until I was 18.

Moved to New York to attend NYU.

My first day of classes in a BFA program there was 9/11.

. . .

Five years later, moved back to NYC, got my equity card in 21 days.

My job was called a swing - I understudied 7 ensemble dance tracks.

A pattern-recognizer’s dream and the only fulltime job I’ve been able to hold down in my life.

Im 41.

————-
This whole time - no matter what one saw of me - I wasn't seeing, hearing, processing in ways the industry (or life) was dictated by majority voices.

I had no way to.

And in hindsight, the idea that things are working the ‘way’

that comes to be articulated is, actually, quite ludicrous.


I was seeing, hearing, sensing in, ahem, a lot of other ways.

But the disparity was disabling:

Some of these times, I would be working so hard to get to an audition that by the time I arrived I did things like:

+ Walk in on the person before me's audition when I couldn’t process the monitor’s instructions in a hallway with a loud echo

+ Arrive at an audition my agent sent me to, then not be able to read the script

+ Plow through a “Law & Order" audition, receive a compliment, but not remember the casting director’s name -- ahem, Johnathan Strauss -- and do what one might logically do and….ask.

I was working under the assumption that we are humans.

We will be having a LONG laugh about this in Yeah No.

. . .

I was a disabled person without any idea.

I was typically dancing 5-6 hours a day.

Class was a place I could feel my body, connect...helpfully.

Because my outer world was devastating.

And because....dance ❤

. . .

Around this time, I was called in for the Maggie / Val cover of the 1st nat’l of the Chorus Line revival.

Despite a decades-long resume of mental health hospitalizations, therapies, and drugs, this was hands-down the best psycho-identity analysis received to date.

Much of Neurodiversity is more accessible through the arts.

I was cut, thankfully so — wouldn’t have been able to do the job, not without an access rider.

. . .

Within 2 weeks, I was unable to walk, in outpatient therapy 4x / week.

Sleeping 18 hours a day.

Able only to sit and be able look at my hand.

I was 25, in olympic-style shape and couldn't move.

Not depressed.

Catatonic.

. . .

Over the next few years, I
was put on a total of 7 psychoactive medications

That didn't help,
I didn’t need,
Don't currently take
And wreaked havoc on my system.

The mental health industry is a place known to not process marginalized difference and rather pathologize and institutionalize it.

(Many have benefits from medications; There are valid reasons for medications;
For me, they didn't alter having a deeply-embodied but distressed life-energy.)

. . .

I spent over 20 years in therapy.

It further reinforced the root of my problems

Took away my internal resources.

Took away access to art.

I was blamed, my voice robbed,

narrative / ability to speak conquered.


I was losing my family.

I would get jobs and get fired;

Or have to quit after a week.

If there had been "a way" that way - or, frankly, any other way - I would have done it.

. . .

My therapists would tell me things like "you know, you're really obsessed with this...'career',

and I remember thinking:

Have you ever *met* a theatre person?!?!

From a disability / Autistic Cultures standpoint, telling someone to stop an interest that their DNA is living off of with cellular survival….

studying rocks, dogs, or dance patterns - is transgression!

. . .

For whatever reason — monotropism, stupidity, destiny? — this soul-contract wasn't done yet

In 2017, I moved back to New York City, a 3rd time.

To “try to make it on Broadway”.

Again.

. . .

By this time, social media and rapid-fire communication had made the parts of the industry I was formerly able to do less accessible.

The parts I hadn’t been able to do but could fake through,

became completely inaccessible.

Everything was dominated by video & visual components.

Misinformation wasn’t just ‘harsh’ anymore,

it was heightened, rampant;

The power grabs and communication gaps more-instant

It wasn’t serving most; Not even people in perceived-hierarchical status.

This was a plot of land I wasn’t going to find ground on, let alone be valued in.

. . .

The irony of all this is that I was there to work.

Like many Autistics, I was born a professional, ready to work, collaborate, make.

A lot of what happens there is trauma dynamics that play out under the guise of professionalism..

Coaches, ‘higher-ups’ singled me out — as they do with many vulnerable people — do to do business-bidding,

casting directors behind tables sexting actors in holding rooms

and so on.

It’s not all ‘bad’, but a lot happens in serial avoidance.

I believed people who were kind, helpful or interested to my face, who laughed when I wasn't in the room.

Not because I'm naive.

Because I don't treat people that way.

I didn’t just sign up for it; I reinforced it,

Stockholm-Syndrome’d myself to it.

I was there to work.
Build.

Everyone kept talking about this community.

After 30 years of "being a part"

(albeit not with access to the ‘right’ door....)

I sit today and wonder, like Mayor Shinn:

WHERE’S THE [COMMUNITY]?!

. . .

By this time, I couldn't dance really at all.

The dance auditions i could attend, i pushed to the one place in the room where i could see the combination
without any awareness that what I needed is called an accommodation.

I read lips and had no idea.

. . .

Simultaneously, thankfully, I was subconsciously using the creative process to connect deeply, somatically to Neurodivergence

and that was unmasking my Autism.

How that looked was empowering, mortifying, dangerous, bridge-burning,

liberating.

Indeed, it was a soul-emerging journey.
. . .

After 20 years in therapy, on 7 psychoactive medications i didn't need, when the pandemic hit,

a *theatre person* looked at me

and said point blank:

"You know, I think you might be Autistic."

Someone who they, themselves,

had taken an empathetic journey

and found what no textbook or "diagnostic criteria" much—accurately teaches.

An ancestral-theatrical lineage of some sort saved my life.

Thank you.
. . .

The summer of ‘21,

after receiving an ‘official’ diagnosis of Autism and ADHD,

I was denied
medical and
mental health care
at 36 places in 90 days in New York City.

Forced off those 7 psychoactive medications

overnight,

including an Adderall crash and SSRI

I'd been on for 15 years
at a time when I stopped breathing 80x/hour in my sleep.

My brain and body had not been getting sufficient oxygen for some time.

My husband and I became unhoused.
Lost the ability to have children.

And for 3 years that followed, there was a threat to my life:
1. If I went to bed.
2. If I woke up.

It’s as if being blamed for being in a head on collision with someone driving the wrong way.

. . .

For those of you have faced this — fellow Neurodivergents, marginalized, spirits, template-changers — this maybe comes as no surprise:.

This is how pathologization, isolation, dehumanization, systemic harm works*.

. . .

Also summer of 2021, someone from that proverbial ‘community’

I'd spent time, money, heart, energy in for 16 years - someone with whom I’d spoken to in person two times. . .

Saw me on West 50th Street.

Pointed.

And laughed in my face.

. . .

That is when everything stopped.

The chasing.

The shape shifting.

The fallacy.

The flood gates of compassion and prioritization of self-respect opened.

That was the day Yeah No was born.

. . .

I was never an actor.
Rather, miscast in my own show.

Like many.

Living through the material, process, characters

who I never played onstage and likely never will.

Whose Autism, ADHD, PDA

I was living through to come into my own.

We’re going to have the most beautiful, healing laugh about that.

. . .

If you see me and / or are cheering me on, thank you very much.

You are engaging with
someone who lost and still loses abilities

to see, hear, breathe, speak, sing, converse, live, love.

Someone who for holes
of life did not have access
to their body, life, or art.

Someone who lost their family.

Someone recouping their soul through stored vibrations of art.

Someone only art and God can interpret, not you.

. . .

If we've shared a rehearsal room or holding room, thank you.

If you've opened your heart, couch, self, friendship, thank you.

If you’ve been a friend, mentor, coach to my face and laughed behind my back, thank you.

If we had an exchange that harmed you and you feel comfortable,

you have a judgment-free place to connect in a way that might help move us forward.

in
peace and
connection

The honor is mine.

. . .

This story is
one patch in an industry quilt.

One.

Not unique; We can be looking at that.

Moving forward, we will ask:

- What are we doing with art in reality, denial of reality?

- Who is wiling to wage perceived legacy for actual legacy?

- As urgent:

Why are Renaissance-like skills, power, spirit, resources, heart, intellect, bandwidth put into compulsively-unwatched submission videos.

Audrey says it best: ‘Something's very wrong here.’

Feeding the plant is not an option anymore.

. . .

Yeah No

NYC, 2025

Virtual options available.

Autism Industy
Theatre Industry
Healing and Celebration
Thank you for your support.
~Vinnie
💜❤️🌈💫

#autisticartist
#pda
#pdaautism
#adhd
#neurodivergentartist
#musicaltheatre
#theatreindustry
#NYC
#yeahno2025NYC

About Vinnie.