Disabled Comedians Speak Out on Performance and Career Barriers Due To Widespread Industry Inaccessibility: ‘I Want There to Be More of Us’

A day before Ramy Youssef was set to record his latest special “More Feelings,” a friend and fellow comedian and actor Steve Way was scheduled to do a practice run as his opener at Brooklyn’s Bell House. It never happened. “The day of the show, they tell Ramy, ‘Sorry, we can’t get Steve on stage.’ They needed a week’s notice to rent a ramp,’” Way, who has his own special coming soon, recalls. “This isn’t Make-A-Wish. I would rather be told I’m not good enough than, ‘Sorry, there are stairs.’”

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In a statement, The Bell House told Variety that it thanks “Steve for his advocacy” and, recently under new management, is “actively taking steps to improve the venue’s accessibility. We are adding a permanent lift and will have ramps available in the meantime.”

Being unable to access the stage isn’t an experience unique to Way. The first time Danielle Perez was denied the ability to perform, the booker called the day of the show to relay that the stage had no ramp. When the “Russian Doll” actress and bilateral below-the-knee amputee asked for assistance getting on stage with her wheelchair — first with the staff’s support and then offering to carry it onto the stage herself — she was told the venue’s manager was “uncomfortable” with that. “You literally won’t even let me do a bar show for no money because you’re scared about liability,” the stand-up said.

The diversity of disabilities means accessibility needs can be both wide-ranging within the community and specific to an individual. But in general, “there are very, very few venues where the stage itself is accessible. There’s a slightly larger number, but still plenty of places inaccessible for an audience member to watch the show,” says Dan Hurwitz, co-founder of the Seattle-based comedian collective The Disabled List and a stand-up missing digits from his hands and feet.

Pavar Snipe, voice actress, host of the “It’s Not Even Like That” podcast and a comedian with rheumatoid arthritis says the first time she saw fellow stand-up Mike Favor in New York while scouting for the ReelAbilities Comedy Night, “the stage didn’t allow for his wheelchair to face forward. He was talking out to the audience [with his head turned sideways] for the whole show.”

Favor, who has Cerebral palsy, adds that he’s also had to perform in front of stages at eye level with crowds where his ability to interact and engage is impeded. When it happened at a Manhattan comedy festival competition, “I said, if I lose this contest, I’m going to remember these two stairs for the rest of my life,” he tells Variety . “But if you say anything, clubs talk to other clubs and they’ll shut you out. If someone tried to sue a club for not being accessible, they probably wouldn’t have a career. I love doing comedy. I don’t want to miss out on a career.”

Comedians say their medium inherently requires flexibility and improvisation, but what’s being asked of them is inequitable, may be illegal under Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act , and can have long-lasting impacts on their careers. “A comedy stage is the entry point to these other opportunities that will help to develop your art,” notes Nina G., author of “Stutterer Interrupted” and a member of the Bay Area troupe Comedians With Disabilities Act. “If you’re not able to develop your art, how are you going to get those acting gigs? How are you going to write that sitcom? How are you going to get a special?”

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According to Snipe, acts can face “the fire and the gauntlet” of navigating inaccessible public transit or expensive and unreliable rideshares even before they arrive. Once at the venue, ASL interpreters, audio description, ramps or accessible bathrooms are few and far between, whether in L.A., New York, or outside these coastal entertainment bubbles.

As a result, accessibility measures can end up falling on the acts to both organize and pay for, as was the case with ASL interpretation and live captioning for The Disabled List Comedy Festival. Maysoon Zayid, a comedian with Cerebral palsy, actress and author of the graphic novel “Shiny Misfits,” says she fought to have interpreters at all her university shows, “even when they insisted no Deaf people were coming.”

Zayid built a long-term relationship with Manhattan’s Gotham Comedy Club in large part because of its accessible bathroom. It’s something she says is lacking from virtually every other comedy venue in the city, which forces acts to try and access restrooms at surrounding establishments, “so it’s if the weather is with you and the person at the door feels like letting you in.”

There are more accessible options like Broadway and The Kennedy Center, but unlike dedicated comedy venues — physically inclusive to nondisabled acts at generally no cost to perform — these spaces can have a price tag of $20,000 per evening, forcing disabled comedians to “pay to play,” says Zayid.

During the pandemic, the rise of Zoom shows ultimately presented “a lot more opportunities” to perform with “accommodations that we have been always asking for, but only because it affected everyone,” says Way. Those measures have since been rolled back after venues re-opened, “really denying the reality that accessibility helps everyone,” notes Perez.

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Navigating the industry’s general lack of access is tricky, but so are the many other realities of trying to make comedy a full-time career. While regularly contending with inaccessibility, comedians can already be juggling multiple jobs, working for low pay and grappling with the exhausting nature of live performance.

“We’re constantly fighting for spots. Constantly fighting for stage time,” Way explains. “When you’re a nondisabled comedian, you’re traveling to all the different venues, but when you’re disabled you have so few options. Venues will want to put you on only so many times in a row.”

Favor notes comedians can get “paid next to nothing” for those shows before they get to “a certain level,” with paychecks as little as $25 and $50 dollars, on top of having no insurance. It’s especially financially taxing for those with disabilities, who experience a 28 percent higher cost of living on average (an additional $17,690 annually) to obtain the same quality of life as nondisabled people, according to the National Disability Institute .

Some rely on union membership for their healthcare, while others work multiple jobs — like serving as university adjuncts — to get employer-subsidized coverage. “I’ve been able to hustle my way into hitting [WGA] minimums for a bit, but it’s terrifying,” says Keisha Zollar, TV writer and co-creator on Netflix’s “Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show.” “I still do improv, but if that was my full-time hustle — my whole family is on my health insurance — I literally do not know how we’d be able to afford it.”

As someone with osteoporosis and Crohn’s disease, a lack of healthcare access alongside the “show up by any means necessary” demands of live and touring comedy partly inspired her shift into more screenwriting. “As someone who has bouts of chronic disability and sometimes it’s debilitating, I was really putting my body through it,” she explains.

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In the current comedy climate, creative demands are also high. The increasing reliance on social media is forcing performers to manage more material — from late night appearances and specials to social clips and touring — better. “The pandemic really accelerated it,” Perez explains. “With the TikTok of it all, we’re just putting it out there and we’re using that to get the fans to come out to see the show. People are doing crowd work specials so you’re not burning material.”

That’s in addition to the extra work some comedians like Nina already put in. The stand-up says she’s “writing for funny,” not around her stutter or dyslexia, so working out and remembering words can be harder. To “see what I’m going to stutter on,” she practices her material repeatedly  at open mics, something “a lot of people at my [career] stage do not go to.”

When it comes to the material itself, acts share different approaches to joking about disability, but generally agree they don’t shy from addressing it with audiences and never make it their only set topic. “A wide variety of things crack me up, but my being disabled is the first thing most people are going to notice, and comedy is all about creating and defusing tension,” says Hurwitz.

Post-pandemic, these jokes are being met by audiences who “really feel emboldened to talk back,” Perez says. While recently headlining a show, an audience member mocked Nina’s  stutter. Another called her a slut. “[To one] I was doing hack comedy by faking a stutter,” she says, noting other members of her Bay Area troupe have been accused of faking their disabilities by audience members. “I have a black belt in dealing with hecklers. This is what I’ve been doing all my life.”

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Performers can face a variety of challenges around their speech on and offstage. Zayid, a Palestinian comedian, says she’s experienced disparate treatment due to her identity as well as censorship after “standing for Palestinian equality” and criticizing Israel and the Biden administration.

That includes having almost every show since Oct. 7 — even events like one with the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts in May — canceled. In a statement, the WBA told Variety that it “terminated our contract with Cancan Productions after we learned Ms. Zayid had made comments on social media in an inflammatory manner that violated the contract. Ms. Zayid’s representative agreed that we terminated according to the terms of the contract.”

Five Arab American Comedy Festival shows in February and March at the Gotham Comedy Club were also among those postponed. In a statement, the club told Variety , “From the day we opened our doors, the safety and security of our patrons, comedians and employees have been of paramount importance. The only reason any of our shows were postponed was with that priority in mind.”

Zayid says she’s not unfamiliar with threats on her life as a stand-up, but what specifically prompted the security risk, beyond the overall tension in the U.S. around the conflict, was never shared with her. It was particularly confusing, Zayid says, since a week earlier she had a sold out show at another venue with no disruptions.

Those five festival shows have since been rescheduled for October, moving from Gotham to Joe’s Pub. “[Gotham owner] Chris [Mazzilli] is a friend. He’s somebody that I love and respect. I don’t think he’s a bigot,” she says. “But the reality is, Amy Schumer’s shows aren’t getting canceled.”

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Comedians tell Variety they take various approaches to navigating the industry labyrinth. Perez looks to support through headliners as one way of addressing inaccessible venues. “When I get to open for bigger names, like Maria Bamford, I get to say I need a ramp,” she explains. “When Maria Bamford asks for a ramp, she’s gonna get a ramp.”

Zollar says finding additional financial support and connection to other artists has been key, something possible through the likes of labs organized by Disability Belongs (formerly RespectAbility) or Inevitable Foundation’s various fellowships for disabled screenwriters and filmmakers. “It’s made it OK to be a full person, where usually… you’re not allowed to feel all the complicated emotions that come with your disability journey.”

Efforts like The Disabled List Comedy Festival and The Comedians with Disabilities Act troupe have not only linked comedians with one another for sold-out shows and bigger audiences, but to more disabled fans, who Nina says “can go in deeper” on the material in an affirming way.

“What I discovered when we created The Disability List is that the disability community [in comedy] was much larger than we originally thought,” Hurwitz tells Variety . “It always makes me feel good when [comedians] do want to opt in. The connotations with disability are so negative, but it’s not a dirty word.”

For Snipe, opting in has resulted in not just becoming more accepting of herself, but producing better material. “I originally had no desire to be on stage. I thought nobody wants to see me. If I acknowledged [my disability], it would other me,” she says. “Once I really realized I can bring [my disability] onto the stage, my commentary got so much better.”

More disabled comedians visible on stages is something Favor and his counterparts say they not only want, but is key to getting more venues to take accessibility seriously. “I just want there to be more of us,” he says. “I want more spaces for us to have opportunities. I don’t want to have to cramp myself in places to make people feel comfortable with the decision to not be accessible.”