What Happened to Ginger Smith: Artistry

This article is about discovering one’s disability in the New York City’s Theatre Industry.

Contains candid, heavy content.

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

Born with a nervous system disability, processing differences,

a unilateral seeing impairment.

Autistic.

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

. . .

Theatre and dance were one of the only ways I could process the world.

‘Stand on number 6.’

‘Dance your heart out.’

Or

audition advice

that started unmasking my Autism in 2007:

’Never be more than who you are or less than who you are’.

(Note: The latter is not ‘safe’ for everyone or in every moment.)

Art rides waves of exhilaration, dread, liberation, danger.

Many artists are deeply embodied; The art can be a spiritual NeuroBiological lifeline.

Access is life-saving and often pinched off.

. . .

For 30 years,

I lived as someone ‘trying to make it on Broadway’ in an

tap-dancing tornado of

authoritarian instinct,

joyful neural-connection, desperation,

and a will to live.

Just get me to a rehearsal schedule, damnit.

. . .

Did my first musical when I was 6.

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

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

Wasn’t particularly "talented";

I was authentic,

uninhibited by neuronormative standards,

and found a deep connection within my body.

My childhood existed to plan an escape from the suburbs, a place that made 0 sense; Like many, ‘I gotta get to New York’.

. . .

Worked as a local hire 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.

Subsequently, entered the Mental Health Industry.

. . .

In 2006, moved back to NYC, got a job, an ‘Equity card’ in 3 weeks.

The job was called a ‘swing’: understudying 7 ensemble dance tracks.

A pattern-recognizer’s dream.

The only fulltime job I’ve held down in my life.

Im 41.

—

This whole time - I wasn't seeing, hearing, processing in the ways the industry (and life) was being dictated by majority voices.

(The idea that things are working much of ‘one way’ is, ultimately, a fallacy.)

I was processing in many great ways.

The disparity, however, was disabling in many places, theatre no exception:

By the time I could actually arrive at an audition, I did things like

+ Walk in on the person before me's audition when I couldn’t process the monitor’s instructions in an echo-heavy hallway.

+ Get to a voice over call on behalf of my agent, then not be able to read the script.

+ Plow through “Law & Order" sides with compliments, not remember the casting director’s name - ahem, Johnathan Strauss - and do what one might logically do:

….ask.

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

I was a disabled person without any idea.

. . .

In 2007, I was dancing 6 hours a day.

Class was a place to feel my body, connect helpfully.

My outer world was devastating.

(And because....dance ❤.)

. . .

I was called in for the Maggie / Val cover of the 1st nat’l of the Chorus Line revival late in the process.

(The combination of these roles was the best psycho-identity analysis I’ve received to date, something I carried as with me for a long time.)

I’d been doing the choreo for years, done the show,

but got to the audition, with a nervous system so burnt out I couldn’t point my toe.

. . .

Within 2 weeks, I was in outpatient therapy 4x / week and couldn’t walk.

25 years old, in olympic-style shape, able only to sit and look at my hand.

Not depressed.

Catatonic.

. . .

The mental health industry is known to pathologize difference further marginalize it and that institution began to take over my life.

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.

(Medications can help some people.

Like some Autistics — research has shown — I evolved out of any benefit, each and every time and then more were added.

Nothing was going to alter my deeply-embodied - but distressed - life-energy, except understanding and support of the disabilities. )

. . .

Therapy, is where I (and my parents) spent 20 years — inpatient, outpatient, private, medicaid, ivy league co-therapists, an Autistic / PDA-affirming therapist who couldn’t convey truth. . .

I dedicated my life, body, relationships — to places and people that reinforced the very roots of my problems.

As I went on in ‘therapy’ my internal resources disappeared further.

My nervous system eventually ‘recovered’ but I had unmasked completely and re-masked according to others’ ideas of what ‘should be.’

My ability to access art — to sing, to dance, listen to music, to speak — left for years at a time.

I was blamed each step of the way.

Narrative, ability to speak (the actual motor function of the tongue) — literally — gone.

I would get jobs and get fired; Or have to quit after a week.

Signed up to take a certification class and had to rock aggressively in my car to attempt to regulate and enter the building.

If there had been "a way" that way - or, frankly, any other way - I had the will.

. . .

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

At that point I wondered who needed a therapeutic adjustment:

Telling someone to stop an interest that their DNA is surviving on….

studying rocks, dogs, or dance patterns - is a yeah no.

Had she ever *met* a theatre person?

. . .

Monotropism, attachment, stupidity, destiny or all of them combiner — for whatever reason, the theatrical soul contract wasn't done yet.

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

to “try to make it on Broadway”.

. . .

By this time,

social media and rapid-fire communication had taken over.

I could not understand why people were posing with Starbucks + plastered smile for ‘socials, then spewing self-hate or hatred towards others in the next breath.

I could not keep up with things like Pay to Plays and predatory coaching; Dangled carrots that ate my soul.

If I could attend a dance audition, I had to push 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.

The parts of the theatre industry I had been able to access or ‘fake’ through

were now mostly inaccessible.

Video & visual components dominated.

(I’ve just recovered enough to watch YouTube for the first time; It’s 2024.)

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

Stockholm-Syndrome’d myself to it for

the love

and something maybe a perceived promise of exception, like Kevin’s ‘Orlando’.

Like a fool on a fool’s journey, day after day, I marched onto the field, cymbals crashing, knowing deep down I couldn’t play.

. . .

The irony is:

I’m a worker.

A theatre-worker.

I was there to work.

I could do the job, but not the masking.

Everyone kept talking about this community.

After 30 years of "being a part"

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

I look back and

like Mayor Shinn, wonder:

WHERE’S THE [COMMUNITY]?!

. . .

Over this time, subconsciously, I was using the audition technique and creative processes

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 journey of soul.

. . .

When the pandemic hit,

a theatre acquaintance

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" —accurately teaches.

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

Thank you.

. . .

After receiving an ‘official’ diagnosis of Autism and ADHD, the summer of 2021,

I was denied
medical and
mental health care
at 42 places in 90 days when moving back to New York City.

I was denied long term mental health care at a public hospitals and other places for reasons like, ‘You can’t be diagnosed Autistic at age 37.”

My neuropsychologist had told me to come off the medications slowly,

but I was forced off of them overnight that summer — 7 psychoactive medications —

including an Adderall crash and SSRI —

some I'd been on for 15+ years
at a time when I had 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.

People I loved, people whose weddings I sang in and had no idea we’d had a relationship problem

hung up the phone when I asked for help.

Thus,

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

It was like 9/11 over and over again.
. . .

Fellow Neurodivergents, marginalized people, spirits, template-changers — for those who have faced this — this all may come as no surprise.

This is, in fact, how systemic isolation, pathologization, dehumanization, systems of white supremacy, control…work.

. . .

That summer of doom, a fellow artist from a ‘theatre community’

I'd spent time, money I had to make myself sick to get, showed up and

gave my heart, energy to for 16 years - a fellow artist from there, whom I’d spoken to in person twice. . .

Saw me on West 50th Street.

Pointed in my face, and laughed.

. . .

That is the day my self-respect was born.

That was the day Yeah No was born.

. . .

I was never an ‘actor’; Like many, I was ‘being ridiculous, what was I doing there, I’s in the wrong st-ory…’.

Living through the songs, lines, process, characters

who I never played, except in my head.

Living through their Autism, ADHD, PDA to come into my own.

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

. . .

All this is to say:

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 extended holes
in life did not have access
to their body, life, or art.

Someone who lost their family.

Someone recouping their soul, hearing loss through stored vibrations of art.

Someone only art and God can interpret, not you.
May we all create spaces to be with people this way.

. . .

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

then 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,
connection

The honor is mine.

. . .

This story is
one thread in an industry quilt.

One.

One was able to get to a computer screen and be read.

Moving forward, we will ask:

- Why the incongruences between artist, art, and 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.