When she was in Grade 11, Ophira Calof was nominated for that city’s version of the Tony Awards, as best lead actress in a high school musical. She didn’t win for starring as an unconventional Princess Winnifred in the play Once Upon a Mattress, but the nod was a big deal at the time.
Now, at age 28, she remembers it as one of the early highlights of a career that has seen the Jewish disability advocate from Ottawa earn a role on the CBC comedy series TallBoyz, along with performances at Second City, Buddies in Bad Times, and the Toronto Fringe Festival. .
“It was very exciting. It was my teenage ‘heartbreak, must persevere,’” Calof said of the 2010 ceremony at the National Arts Centre.
These days, she’s working to make the Canadian entertainment industry more inclusive of artists and writers with disabilities through the hashtag #CripTheScript, a term Calof says is no longer considered offensive by the disabled community.
“The idea is sort of taking that word and saying like, ‘Yeah, no, disability isn’t a bad thing.’ We do do things a little bit differently. People’s bodies and minds work in different ways, and sometimes that way is very much not in line with the way that most of society works. And that’s okay.”
Snow White and Peter Dinklage controversy
The issue of disability in the entertainment industry came to the forefront recently when Peter Dinklage, who starred as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, slammed the Walt Disney Company over a coming live-action film of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
While the producers wanted to hire actors who were Little Persons, critical voices led by Dinklage felt the characters were going to be portrayed with negative stereotypes.
In turn, potential applicants for the roles felt they would no longer be able to get their big break in a way Dinklage once did.
“Ideally, if there were just a lot more roles out there that weren’t built off of stereotypes, then there wouldn’t be this tension, right? People would be able to have thriving careers and feel like the community was well represented,” Calof said.
There have been breakthroughs recently, in American shows such as Special on Netflix—starring Ryan O’Connell, who has cerebral palsy—and on Broadway, where actor Ali Striker, who was paralyzed in a car accident and uses a wheelchair, won a Tony. But it remains rare to find actual actors who are disabled on stage and screen and rarer still for Canada. (The late Canadian actor Munya Yassir played a character in a wheelchair on Degrassi: The Next Generation, and lived with neurofibromatosis in real life.)
While advertising agencies and others in show business have consciously ramped up the opportunities for people who are visible minorities, Calof says the disabled community has yet to be invited to the table.
“I act and I write and sometimes I come in as a story consultant to people creating stories that have to do with disability,” she explained. “And for some reason, there is very much this idea that disability is different and that disabled people aren’t necessarily equipped to act at the scale that non-disabled people are.”
Barriers to accessing the industry
Calof wears a neck brace and, since 2015, has used a wheelchair to get around in Toronto, where she also works as a curator and programmer for film projects, including with the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.
What really frustrates Calof is when able-bodied actors get cast in the roles of disabled characters, such as Forrest Gump, The Good Doctor, and The Big Bang Theory. Those characters were persons who lived with autism.
“More recently, the community has come forward and said, like, ‘Hey, we are also interested in telling stories and acting and also putting a narrative forward that’s maybe a bit more authentic to what the actual experience of being disabled is, as opposed to someone else’s assumption or idea. But there’s a lot of pushback, a lot of tension,” Calof said.
What does it look like to navigate—literally—through the barriers to apply for an audition?
“I sent an email to the casting agency double-checking if the room that I’m supposed to go to is accessible. And I find out that there’s no elevator. So in that specific case, I can’t even get into the room to audition, never mind the idea of what the experience would be like if I was cast, or what the experience on set would be.”
Jewish Disability, Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month
On Monday, Feb. 7, Calof was the keynote speaker at her hometown’s Kehillat Beth Israel congregation, as part of Jewish Disability, Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month (JDAAIM). The month-long initiative is into its 14th year. It is organized by Jewish federations around North America to spotlight the tens of thousands of people in the community who live with disability.
She welcomed the opportunity to share her journey, but has mixed feelings about the concept.
“It’s great to have a specific space in time where there’s a spotlight and these conversations happen, and it’s hopeful. But also, I’m disabled 365 days of the year.”
While older generations of Jewish families may have considered having a disabled child as a shanda, the Yiddish word for something to be ashamed of, Calof instead sometimes spells the word disabled with a capital “D” on their website.
“So ultimately, not to say that my experience with disability is all butterflies, roses and rainbows, there’s a lot of frustration, but I am ultimately proud to be part of the disability community, and so sometimes I capitalize the D to kind of remind myself of that.”
Jewish misconceptions
It wasn’t always so, especially while Calof was trying to participate in the Jewish community’s religious and cultural ceremonies in the early days of her condition. At times, she used a walker or a cane. But not always.
“Before I had a wheelchair and would go about in the community, I would feel so embarrassed if I was at shul and the Ark opened and everyone was standing and I couldn’t stand, but nobody knew why I couldn’t stand,” Calof recalled. “And I sort of feel that sense that I was being disrespectful, and… we don’t necessarily always know what’s going on.”
Calof would like the Jewish community to be mindful of how differently they approach the issue of a person’s illness, compared to how long-term chronic conditions are viewed.
“Someone is hospitalized, or something happens, and the casseroles start piling up on the front door, and the community really comes out and supports, and we have Mi SheBerachs,” she said, with a reference to the Hebrew prayer for the sick.
It was less clear how people with permanent physical problems could find a place to both receive help but also play an active role in the Jewish community.
“There wasn’t necessarily a mechanism within the community to hold space for that.”
What’s next?
The next few months will be very busy for Calof. She’s putting the program together for the ReelAbilities Film Festival in Toronto, currently scheduled as a virtual event in May, through the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.
The CBC has also hired her to weed through the applications for a brand new access fund for creative screenwriters and documentary filmmakers who are disabled. Calof has been tasked to help pick the winning candidates.
“There are so many stories to tell, so many incredibly talented storytellers who just need to be given the space to tell the stories on their own terms.”