Huntington Theatre Company’s Teenage Dick Reunites BU Alums and Longtime Friends
“The idea was to...present a wide range of work that could [open the] casting of not just one, but multiple characters with disabilities, and hopefully generate not only employment, but conversation.”
This article was first published in Bostonia on December 6, 2021. By John O’Rourke | Top photo by Jackie Ricciardi
EXCERPT
Nine years ago, actor Gregg Mozgala had had enough. Born with cerebral palsy, he had become so frustrated by what he describes as “rampant lack of [acting] opportunity,” he established his own theater company—Apothetae—to produce works that explore the experiences of people with disabilities. Mozgala reached out to a handful of playwrights he knew, asking them to help tell their stories.
“The idea was to augment the canon and to present a wide range of work that could serve as a container for the casting of not just one, but multiple characters with disabilities, and hopefully generate not only employment, but conversation,” says Mozgala (CFA’00).
Among the writers he spoke with was Mike Lew, an old friend. Mozgala asked him to reimagine William Shakespeare’s Richard III, featuring one of the most famous disabled characters in Western dramatic literature. (Richard suffered from a severe curvature of the spine, resulting in a hunchback).
The result is Teenage Dick, a darkly satirical work set in a US high school. The play centers on Richard, a teenager who has been bullied because of his cerebral palsy and who is determined to exact revenge on his enemies by becoming class president.
As the play developed, Mozgala contacted another old friend—former BU roommate Moritz von Stuelpnagel (CFA’00), a Tony Award–nominated director (Hand to God)—to help workshop the play and to direct its debut at the Public Theater in New York in 2018, with Mozgala starring as the teenage protagonist. The New York Times review of the show calls it “moving, exciting, and profoundly eye-opening for audiences just beginning to see disabled actors onstage.”
Boston audiences can see the play at the Huntington Theatre Company’s Calderwood Pavlion from now through January 2, with Mozgala once again starring in the title role and von Stuelpnagel directing.
For Mozgala and von Stuelpnagel, the show, produced in association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and the Pasadena Playhouse, marks the continuation of a collaboration that began at BU. After rooming together during a study abroad semester in London, the two worked on a semi-autobiographical play Mozgala had written about his experience with disability, GameLegs, which was shown at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. After graduation, the two continued to collaborate—along with Lew—on numerous projects at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre.