Play gives comedic take on living with disabilities in Windsor

Windsor can often be an uncomfortable place for people with disabilities, and a new play in the southwestern Ontario city is offering a comedic look at how some in that community see our city.

Pirate Attack on the 1C Bus Going Downtown was created by Joey Ouellette, a winner of the 2021 Windsor-Essex Playwriting Contest for the piece. 

The play opened Nov. 18 at The Shadowbox Theatre and is on a three-week run. It's about a group of friends who frequent what used to be a popular community centre before the city cut bus services to the area, meaning less people go. The friends have to work together to save their community centre. 

"A big part of the inspiration for this playwright was to create vivid, real, disabled characters who are facing troubles that real disabled people face," said Michael K. Potter, who plays Shawn in the production — a character who is a wheelchair user and chains himself to a bus. 

"It's really rare in our experience to find disabled characters in any medium, whether it's theatre, film, TV, books, whatever, who are actually human beings — who are not objects of inspiration, not objects of pity, they're not objects of anything they are subjects, people with their own lives and experiences."

Some of the actors in the show have disabilities in real life, including Potter, who is a double amputee and blind. 

"When I was in a wheelchair, that was a huge wake-up call to just how much of our city is actually inaccessible to a lot of people and I didn't notice it until I was in a position to access it," said Potter. "And now, add blindness to that. I can say most public places I actually avoid."

Potter said the play reminds us to actively look for the people "you're not seeing" on a daily basis, or those who may be "invisible" to us. 

Shannyn Mcrae, who plays Claire in the play, said she hopes the show inspires people to move forward with a positive message. 

"I think a lot of us have learned about ourselves ... and a lot of us have learned about the community as a whole and especially accessibility in Windsor being a main theme I guess," she said.

"I feel like it's something Windsor really needed right now."

Mcrae's character has Tourette syndrome. She said she had to do a lot of research about the condition.

Actor Justin Pare-Mulber, whose character has autism, said the cast came together to make sure they were playing their parts with sensitivity.