Jessy Yates is a theater artist who was recently announced as the inaugural recipient of a scholarship from the Ruderman Family Foundation and Yale School of Drama. Here, she tells us about her artistic inspirations, current projects, and future plans.

Where are you based?

I was born and raised in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, which shaped my apologetic midwestern ways and my love of all things potatoes. At 18 I moved to New York City for undergrad, and my six years in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn shaped my artistic tastes. I’m now in New Haven, Connecticut, at Yale School of Drama until 2021. I’m not at all sure where I’ll be after my time at school, but I suspect I’ll keep coming back to Brooklyn for the rest of my life.

What is your area(s) of artistic practice?

I’m currently getting my MFA in acting, so first and foremost I’m an actor for both stage and screen. However, I got my start in the theater as a creator of original work and director. While in the city, I was also working as a performance artist and burlesque performer under the name Cerebral Pussy (yes, this is a disability pun). You could say I’m a jack of all things stage.

What training or experiences have shaped you as an artist?

I spent my undergrad time learning from the best downtown theater artists at NYU. My studio was directly across the street from The Public Theater so many of my professors were on staff or artists in residence there. I was lucky enough to have professors like Meiyin Wang (former co-director of Under the Radar Festival at The Public), Paul Lazar of Big Dance Theatre, and the amazing young playwrights Jen Silverman, Sarah DeLappe, Max Posner, and Jeni Mahoney. Due to proximity, members of The Civilians were able to craft a show with some of us my senior year and to this date it remains one of my favorite theatrical experiences, because it allowed me to write text and music and perform that original work.

At the same time, I was beginning to explore my disabled identity and make work about my experience as a disabled woman coming into my own sexualization. Through school I was connected with my artistic mentor, burlesque star Julie Atlas Muz. Her husband happened to be Mat Fraser, disabled actor and nightlife performer. He took me under his wing and helped nurture me as a performance artist, booking me at several spaces like Brooklyn Academy of Music that I never would have been able to do myself as a 21-year-old kid, new on the scene.

Now, here at Yale, I’m learning to love the theatrical cannon just as much as I already love working on new plays. This semester we are doing almost exclusively Chekhov and Ibsen. My time at Yale feels like the perfect place to fill in the gaps in my theatrical education.

What are your current projects?

I don’t have much time to work on my own projects as much as I’d like because they keep us quite busy at Yale. I’m currently in tech as an actor for a workshop production of the wwavvves part 1 by my incredible playwriting classmate, Benjamin Benne.

When I have the time to cook up my own projects, I’m thinking about my solo-clownesque show called You’re Going to Hell if You Laugh that was last seen at Prelude Festival in 2017. This piece is a movement piece using both clown and burlesque influences to examine the infantilism and voyeurism that I’ve experienced as a disabled women.

I also have a couple of projects that are a bit more nebulous in their development such as a pilot about the accessible housing lottery in NYC, a short film examining the comedic elements of mourning, and a play about my experiences growing up as a disabled child with parents who also acquire disability. Basically, lots a brewin’.

Who or what is currently inspiring you in your artistic pursuits?

Right now I am loving long-form streaming service comedy. I think that networks like Netflix and Amazon are giving television an opportunity to play with form—no longer is it necessary to adhere to the 23 or 43 minute format with pacing that includes commercial breaks. I have been loving The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Easy, Transparent, and I Love Dick. I’m incredibly inspired by what Jill Soloway has done to employ women and trans people, as well as the way Jill gives agency to women’s sexuality on screen. I would love to be able to make work that does a similar thing for the disabled community. On stage, I’m loving the fearless work of playwright Jeremy O. Harris. I’m thrilled by the way he is bringing deviant sexual politics into the American mainstream theater.

Some felllow disabled artists I’m living for these days are the incredible and innovative dancers Jerron Herman and Alice Sheppard. Ali Stroker in Daniel Fish’s gritty Oklahoma is something I didn’t know I needed but now cannot get enough of; it makes me think about all the ways disability can enhance characters in the canon. And finally—disabled visual artists Park McArthur and Shannon Finnegan who both use disability aesthetics to inform their rigorous and innovative practices.

How does disability influence your work?

My work will always include disability, from top to bottom, because I—the person embodying the work—cannot hide from my cerebral palsy. It’s as apparent as the fact that I am a white woman, so to disregard it would be cutting myself off from bits of my humanity.

In a practical sense, I started making my own work because I didn’t feel there was enough empowering work for disabled women. Unless I want to spend my career perpetuating the infantilizing narrative of Laura in The Glass Menagerie, then I need to take responsibility for my own career and carve out a place for myself. Growing up, I never saw my experiences in media, so I just assumed a body like mine didn’t belong in society. I want to make work so that some young disabled child can see themselves and know that they’re wanted and valid.

What advice would you share with emerging artists with disabilities?

As annoying and unfair as this may sound, the reality of being a disabled artist in a non-disabled world is that we must be really dang good. Get as much training as possible. Be rigorous with yourself and make sure that you’re getting feedback as rigorous at your non-disabled peers.

And never forget you have a story to tell that the world has been ignoring for too long.

Follow Jessy on Instagram and Twitter @jessyyates.