Kyra Sedgwick and the lighter side of disability in “All of Me”

It has been more than 40 years since Kyra Sedgwick first appeared on TV, in the soap opera “Another World”. She recalled her lines from her first scene: “Oh, my God: ‘I’m on the road with a rock group, Grandma. It’s called The Deep Six,’” she laughed. “I was 16 and that’s when I fell in love with acting.”

In the following decades, she co-starred in films such as “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge” and “Bachelorettes.” She headlined the hit TV series “The Closer” and is headed to big and small screens.

So what is Kyra Sedgwick doing in a 157-seat Off-Broadway theater? “I love the play,” she explained, “and it feels like we’re talking about important things that don’t get a lot of light, which is disability, but to do it in this incredible container of a rom-com and, like, a story of family dysfunction – that’s my jam!”

In playwright Laura Winters’ “All of Me,” Sedgwick plays Connie, Lucy’s working-class mother, who uses a scooter and communicates primarily through text-to-speech technology — just like Lucy’s romantic interest , Alfonso. Sedgwick said: “I think people might be afraid that if there are two people in wheelchairs, it’s going to be sad, and it’s anything but that. It’s hilarious.”

Madison Ferris and Danny J. Gomez play the romantic leads. They say they like the play no indulging in what has been called “inspiration porn”, which Gomez described as: “Look at this disabled person, he just scored the basket at the end, and everyone catches him, and you know, it’s like, He is so inspiring!“

Ferris added: “Or they have a special ability that no one else can. They may have existed all their lives without ever hacking a computer in their life, and then when they become incapacitated, that is their main talent.”

The play explores the often low expectations placed on people with disabilities, something Ferris and Gomez understand well. “I had a mountain biking accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down,” Gomez said. “I didn’t think anything in life was possible. But as people with disabilities, we are life’s best adapters. Like, we adapt to any situation.”

Ferris said, “I think my mom expected me to stay home and live with her. And boy, did I prove her wrong!”

Ferris, who has muscular dystrophy, exceeded those expectations, making her professional Broadway debut opposite Sally Field in “The glass zoo.”

The push and pull between parents and children is something Sedgwick has thought about a lot since her two children with her husband, actor Kevin Bacon, left the nest.

Asked to complete the sentence “If you’ve done your job as a mother, then…” Sedgwick responded: “Your children will leave. Yes, your children will leave. They just don’t need you in the same way, they can survive without you , which is kind of painful! I mean, I’ll always wake up in the morning and the first thing I think about is them, but they don’t need me on a daily basis.”

Sedgwick and Bacon have been married for over 35 years. She says her family’s stability is a far cry from the one she grew up with: “They’re very different. I mean, without a doubt. My father left when I was two and a half and left my mother with three children. . I mean, I just think there’s trauma there, right?

When Sedgwick was six years old, her mother married renowned art collector Ben Heller. “It was like another world,” Sedgwick said. “We were, you know, kids who played tag at home, and I was a real tomboy. And then suddenly there were Rothkos and Pollocks and Gottliebs and, like, we had to be careful, because we were surrounded by important art and it seemed clear. This is an important art, so you must be important too.“

After she showed talent, her parents’ expectations increased. “As soon as I started acting,” she said, “I felt them shifting their attention in a way that felt quite intense, actually! I think they had high expectations for me and I had high expectations for myself.”

And does she think these raised expectations were good? “Well, I guess it was worth it,” she said. “At, you know, 57, 58 years old, I’m producing a lot of things that are going to be high profile and directing things that are going to be high profile. And I think the message for me is: don’t believe people when they say, ‘You really shouldn’t even try. There are people better than you at this.’ Stand up and be counted. You have a lot to contribute.”

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Story produced by Amol Mhatre. Editor: Carole Ross.