Directors in Chairs


Before Jenni Gold says “action” on a dark sound stage in Los Angeles, she gives a crew member direction. “Yes, sir,” comes the response. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we apparently don’t have enough female directors,” says Gold, chuckling. “Yes, ma’am,” says the crew member, and everyone on set laughs.

Shot in 16 days, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Aaah! Roach!! is a horror-comedy film about a group of fraternity students that accidentally unleashes a plague of chemically-altered, man-eating cockroaches on campus. In addition to directing, Gold, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a power wheelchair, developed the story and is co-producing and editing it. “Roaches are the scariest thing ever,” she says. “I grew up in Miami, and no matter how clean our house was and how often the exterminator came to spray, I’d be brushing my teeth and one would pop out of nowhere and scare the bejeezus out of me.”

Gold went to film school at the University of Central Florida and is best known for the critically acclaimed documentary CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion that explores the history of disability portrayals in film and television. Gold’s first feature film Ready, Willing & Able centers around a wheelchair-using former CIA agent. “I’ve had to create my own opportunities,” says Gold. “My goal has always been to be a director, but no one would hire me. I would get hired as a writer or editor. But to get hired as a director, I had to become a producer to fund projects to hire myself.”

There aren’t many directors with disabilities in Hollywood, and Gold is the only wheelchair user that she knows of actively directing in the Directors Guild of America. “On the one hand, I am shocked by that, but on the other hand, I am not,” says Katherine Beattie, a writer and producer on CBS’s NCIS: New Orleans. “Our vision of directors is that they are up in the action, up at the camera, with the actors, and people can’t comprehend how someone who uses a chair would do that. But, as any of us who work on sets and use chairs know, it can be done.”

Jenni Gold directs on the set of the horror-comedy film Aaah! Roach!!
Jenni Gold directs on the set of the horror-comedy film Aaah! Roach!!

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“Anywhere a camera dolly can go, I can go,” says Gold. “And if we’re shooting underwater, I will use video assist.” Gold feels that having a disability makes her a better director. “My entire life I have had to direct people to help me do things my way, and happily,” she says. “It has also made me a good problem solver, which is key in filmmaking.”

Brian Balcom is a disabled Asian American theater director based in Chicago. Last March, the day after he opened Theater Wit’s production of Teenage Dick, the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to shut down. “The artistic director had foresight though and recorded a performance, which is how it survived.” says Balcom. From the comfort and safety of their own home, audiences watched online. “We had people tuning in from across the country, and the run got extended a few times. For a while, it was the only live theater going on.”

Part of Balcom’s job as a director is building relationships with theater companies he wants to work with. But things can become complicated when he discovers a rehearsal space isn’t wheelchair accessible. “Rehearsal rooms are potentially a minefield as far as access goes,” says Balcom. “They may be on a second floor of a building that doesn’t have an elevator, or it’s on the first floor, but the restrooms are in the basement. And how do you solve the problem? It can make you feel like you are creating a burden for the theater company.”

Brian Balcom began directing one-act plays in high school, shortly after his spinal cord injury.
Brian Balcom began directing one-act plays in high school, shortly after his spinal cord injury.

Balcom grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and started out as an actor. “When I was 7, I was in a choir, and the choral director was the children’s director for the Ordway Theater and Minnesota Opera. She helped cast me in South Pacific, La Boheme, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Balcom continued to act through middle school and after he sustained a spinal cord injury at 13. But in high school, he pivoted and started to direct one-act plays. “Back then, I had an awareness that the roles out there [for performers with disabilities] weren’t attractive.  They were either after school special kind of things, or they were just there to forward the protagonists sense of empathy. And no one was taking the shots and casting disabled actors. If I was going to continue to pursue theater, I had to find another outlet.” Balcom applied for and was accepted to the four-year directing program at Carnegie Mellon University, and later got an MFA from DePaul University.

One of Balcom’s favorite things about directing is collaborating with actors and designers to create a world. “There is a moment in every production where I go into the theater for the first time and things are happening — things are being built, put up and painted. There’s this magical moment where I look at it and think, all of this is happening because of me, because of some idea in my head, because I pitched this play, because I think this is a story that is important to share.”

Throughout the pandemic, Balcom has been directing play readings online and Gold directed a short film by capturing the actors through Zoom. Aaah! Roach!! is expected to be out later this year. “A cockroach movie won’t solve the world’s problems,” says Gold, “but hopefully people will enjoy some creepy scares and a few laughs.”


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