Tell me something about you, Stephanie: How old are you? Where are you born? Which is your profession (I’ve read that you used to act…)? Why did you choose to be an actrice? I’ve also read that you have a degree in theater and a Doctorate in Business Administration… I am now 45 years old so this all happened when I was 30, I was born in Denver, Colorado (but don’t remember it at all) and my profession now is that I run the theater company, Nicu’s Spoon. Before this and before my daughter was born, I worked for the International Rescue Committee in Emergency Response section helping to counsel, house and care for refugees and those disaplaced by war all over the world (Our very first play as a company was one we had written about refugees, called ‘Displaced’). I have an undergraduate degree from california institute of the arts and a Doctorate in Business Administration from Somerset University in England.

- How did you end up in Romania? You told me that you lived here for 4 years. Under what circumstances did you come? Were you already married? And you came because… ? Wanting to…? Did you know, when coming, that you would work with abandoned kids? In other words, you worked with abandoned children from… Where from? Bucharest? Other cities? What do you remember, when arriving here, seeing the kids… seeing the people? Which was the atmosphere back then? I mean, you were coming from a normal, democratic country, into a troubled Romania, a recovering Romania… I ended up in Romania after seeing a TV program about the children left abandoned in hospitals there after the revolution and Ceaucescu’s execution. I contacted the agency in the TV program and they hired me immediately - we were one of the very first groups to enter Romania after the revolution - I arrived in early 1990. I wasn’t married then so it was a perfect time to do something like this. I just wanted to help children and make things better for them. I knew I would be working with abandoned kids (I had helped to administrate and set up the project with the Romanian and US governments and Dr. Rodica Matusa at the central Constanta hospital) and I had taught before as a teachers aide in the USA and had been particularly affective with kids with special needs. The children we worked with in Romania were all in Constanta, the largest seaport, where HIV was all over as the sailors would come in infected and sell their blood and then as a child would be sick they would be infected by a blood transfusion. Also many children were abandoned in the hospital by families who simply could not feed them, but had to have them (there was a 5 child rule by Elena Ceaucescu so women had many kids and then found they couldn’t feed them - they would then leave them at hospitals).

I was amazed at first how the children were treated when we arrived, they were treated like slabs of meat. Ignored a lot by the staff (and it was not the staffs fault, they were exhausted and undertrained and underpaid) - our project was to take an existing hospital and staff and children and re-make it into ‘family care’ units (we actually renovated a bit) and re-train the staff as well. I think they really all thought we were a bit nuts to do this and didn’t understand why we were bothering with kids infected with HIV - BUT as they began to work with us and see the kids as human beings, instead of bodies they had to feed fast and move on from, they got it and began to enjoy the program and us. The atmosphere was tough in Constanta, very little was available in the markets, frequent power outages, 3 or 4 of us got Hepatitis A from the water (someone had thrown a dead goat into the sewer basin blocks away…) It was like another planet and the first 3-4 months were hard, also just choosing the kids for each ‘family’ and working with them was hard as well - we often had to fight prejudices (along with Nicu I had the first Gypsy child in my group and that broke the barrier for others to help gypsy kids). It was also a very exciting time in Romania as you could feel an energy in the country - a desperate need to grow and change and try new things and rebuild.

- How was Romania of the nineties, what was it like for an American? What did it bother you? What were you troubled by? I remember so little from that period and I’m curious which was the perception of a total stranger… I was maybe most bothered by those who were apathetic, who had been so damaged by the former system that really they had no belief that things would ever change. And those who were so used to living under Ceaucescu that they really didn’t want to be responsible for their own lives, they wanted the state to be - freedom and responsibility for them was a very scarey thing. Things like food shortages or no hot water and such you can always get used to, it was the damage in the populace that was the most troubling - everyone was suspicious of everyone, rumors ran the country as nobody had real access to true information about anything, vestiges of the securitate were still around trying to find their place in the new government and everything was in a change state as an entire country tried to figure out what ‘democracy’ was and if they really wanted that at all.

- When/where/how did you meet Nicu? I read he was only five… If it’s not to painfull, please tell me the story of that boy, from the moment you met him until you took him with you… and, of course, tell me about his progress, about his battle, your battle also, about his desires, abous his ability to recuperate… Tell me the story of the spoon which became a symbol of this battle… Where you aware back then that he is infected with HIV? Where you told that? I’m trying to figure out the proportions of that phenomenon (I’m 26 years old and, back then, I was only 10, and here, in Romania, the average man doesn’t know much about those kids, about the proportion of this infection with HIV in centres and hospitals…) I met Nicu as we were renovating the hospital (we hadn’t taken families yet and so had just looked at the wards of kids) – I would wander the wards at night and touch the kids and talk to them (many of them were very ill, just skeletons really and just needing to be hugged as they passed away and all of them had been denied human contact and so were VERY desperate for it). Nicu was 4 ½ (and had never been out of his crib) when I found him in the wards and I noticed him because he was enormous, the largest child there. He and I did not speak initially we only looked at each other and played very basic games but I knew he was very special and that there was someone wonderful inside this little boy. I then discovered that in 6 months he would be sent to a large center for ‘irrecuperables’ (which I then was asked to visit and look at)– basically a mental institution where everyone from age 5 to age 100 was stripped to their underwear and all put into a large gymnasium together, there were psychotically dangerous inmates right next to people who simply were slow – violence was common, as was rape and abuse – but they had no place else to put them. I got vocal then about the fact that no matter what, Nicu was not going to that place – period. The hospital in Constanta did not want to put him into our program (he was too old, he was deaf, he was retarded, he would never walk or speak – they listed many things and reasons we should not work with him) but I just kept saying ‘I don’t care, I WILL work with him.” As loudly as possible. Eventually I think I just wore them down, and they figured ‘ok, let her have him – she’ll be sorry!’ – but for me it was a deadline – I had to get him before he turned 5 and went to the ‘irrecuperables’ home. So, I got him and 4 other children, one a gypsy girl (Nela) which caused another problem as they did not want us working with the gypsy kids. But I got her and later others took gypsy kids from the wards too. We began to work in a home group, like a family, and I was given a staff member to be my 2nd mommy for the group, Mirela Badea, who ended up being a dear friend.

They all had varying problems but Nicu was in the worst shape- However, I quickly figured out he was not deaf or mute, and came to believe that he had no physical impairment which would stop him walking, it was just a matter of getting him up and getting muscles in his legs. He was retarded to a certain degree but soon began to speak and read and astound us all. But the toughest thing was that he had been on a bottle filled with gruel his whole life (as had most of them) – but the younger kids gave up the bottle for solid food fairly easily (Nela actually had to be taught not to hoard food, as she never quite believed she would get enough to eat) as they were at the developmental point where they were wanting to chew food anyway. Nicu, at nearly 5 years old, had missed that developmental stage completely and it was very hard to return to it. So along with the daily ABC’s and making sounds and drawing and playing and physical therapy– Nicu and I had two major goals – walking and giving up the bottle (and each of the other children had goals as well but they were in much better shape than he). We were told they all were HIV positive, but after 6 months we had them tested and about 5 of the 30 total were not HIV positive – those 5 ended up being adopted out to Romanian families. Emelia, my youngest, was adopted out to a Romanian family. I remained with Nicu, Octavian, Claudio and Nela, my lovely gypsy girl. And we kept working. It was a matter of time for Nicu to walk, this we knew (although the Romanian staff, I think, still did not believe he would ever walk). But the tough and daily battle was over the bottle and spoon. It took 6 months and in a way I had to break every defense he had, become the center of his life, as his bottle had been the only friend, his only constant in his life – and I had to break that and become that myself and get him to give the bottle up. I began to show him how to chew, by chewing myself, I began to try to get food into him (wrestling matches like mad over this one as he really was afraid of it all) and it was a constant fight. But one day (after MANY long days) I popped his jaw open and managed to get a spoonful of applesauce into him by surprise – and then I stepped back – and his whole face changed as the flavor flooded his mouth. It was as if the clouds parted and the sun shone down on him and I saw that he ‘got it’ – and then he looked up and opened his mouth for more – and there we were. That’s simple, but yet so hard to get to. He began to slowly eat solid food and learn to chew slowly and his spoon became his toy, his friend, his companion. I let him have it and he carried it with him, slept with it, would sit in the sun and bounce sunbeams off of it and talk to it. It was literally the bringer of life for him. About a month after that he fed himself one day (and word spread and Romanians and Americans alike came running to see and we all stood there and cried together) and a month after that he walked by himself and we all cried again. And we all learned that these children, and all children can do ANYTHING if just given lots of love and a fighting chance.

Did you meet his parents? Or he was just an abandoned kid like so many other… Did you try to find something from his background… relatives… What was his complete name? Nicu… ? When was he born? We tried to find and meet all the parents of all families and I did meet all parents for all my children. The central hospital in Constanta tracked them all down. For Nicu I met his mother (I am not sure even she knew where his father was) and she really just seemed uncomfortable and waiting to get out – she only came because the hospital had asked her to. She came once and never again, but by then – I was ‘Mami’ and she was just a lady in the room. He was born in Constanta and his last name was Pascu. There were varying dates for his birth – one is September and one in December – we eventually figured that the December one was probably when he was left at the hospital (at 3 months old he had gotten sick) and that he had been born in Sept of 1986.

- When did you decide to adopt him, to take him with you, towards a normal life?So, I did not legally adopt him as the USA had laws against adopting HIV children then – instead I stayed in Romania and worked and lived with him for 2 years and then visited for nearly 2 years. One thing that was great about his form of retardation and his developmental slowness was that he had no concept of time. So if I walked out of the room and then visited a month later for him it was like no time had passed…for him I was always right around the corner and always present.

- Please tell me more about this 4 years period in Romania? Bad memories? Good things? Likes and dislikes… Tell me about your activities here… Your friends, your husband, your wishes back then… The first few years were with the children in Constanta full time but the goal from the beginning had been to turn it over to the Romanian staff and eventually we did – I returned to the US for a visit in 1992 but then came back to Romania, stayed in Constanta for a while and then eventually moved to Bucharest and worked for the Soros Foundation. But I would train back into Constanta to visit my kids whenever I could. I met my husband at the Soros Foundation, my very first day there, in 1992. I had two lives then –one in Constanta and one in Bucharest.

- When did you decide to return to the States? Did you know, from the beginning, that you would come back in USA at a certain point? My husband and I married the end of 1992 and remained in Romania, but then in 1993 he got accepted to a study program in Hungary so we went there for 10 months. Then after that he got accepted to a Masters Program in Finance in the USA so that is actually why we returned to the USA in 1994– for him. I remained in phone and letter contact with Constanta through late 1996.

- What was the reaction of your American friends when they saw you with an adopted child from Romania? Relatives?Anyone in my family and friends generally were unsure when I first went to Romania, but those who met Nicu and the other kids fell in love – he was a magical child and Nela, Octavian (Tavi) and Claudio were lovely kids as well. I adored them.

- The end was painfull, I’m sure of that… but I have to ask… When has Nicu died? Well, there were many painful moments – but when you enter the life of a child with HIV you know your time is about Quality, not Quantity. I think you lose them a million times in your imagination before you truly lose them. All four of the kids had HIV so someone always had something for us to deal with medically (and I learned a LOT) and there were many emergencies with them over the 2 years I was with them full time (we had near death times for both Tavi and Claudio during the time I was there), but we also knew that had we not come when we had that especially Nicu would not have lasted another 6-8 months. The first painful time came when it was time to remove myself in 1992 to go for a visit home and in essence turn the family over to the Romanian staff we had become dear friends with. I wept and wept and blubbered like mad – it was the hardest thing I have ever done. But then I came back two months later and began to visit a lot and watch them grow even more. Nicu died in 1996 in September, just after his 10thbirthday. It was devastating even though I knew he was sicker and thinner and close to going. Afterwards I felt as if I was wrapped in cotton for about a week – I couldn’t quite hear or function for a while, but in time I came back. But he had a magical life filled with love and learning and he lives on now with me each day.

- Coming back to the theater company, why did you decide to found it? And why this name? (Of course, I’m aware of the reason, but I cannot quote muself :) I was tired of theater companies claiming to be diverse and claiming to work with prejudiced groups, but not really doing it – so I and two other women founded it at the same time we were doing a large developmental play about women and children refugees. There came a time when we realized we would have to have a name for the company and at that time it seemed we had taken on so much that it would never work – I thought to myself, ‘hmmm, there was another time when I almost thought I had taken on too much and it would never work’ – and I said to the other founders – ‘let me tell you a story’ – and I told them the story of Romania, and Nicu, and of our battles together and of his spoon and how it had come to symbolize that anything was possible. And then I suggested we name the company ‘Nicu’s Spoon’. After they got done crying they said it was perfect – it meant all the things we needed it to mean – that everyone deserves a chance, that all things are possible, and it honors an amazing child who changed my life.

- The purpose of the company? Its aim? I’ve read about diversity, about giving the chance to express themselves to those conseidered by us “unable to do some things”… The company works with marginalized groups, groups which are ignored or face prejudices – women, children, different colors and ethnicities, different ages, genders and disabilities. We work to change perceptions (as I did with Nicu and the perception that he would never be able to do anything) not just from the audience but also the artists – for an artist to work with another artist who is deaf or blind – it changes their perception of what art is and how it can impact the world.

- What categories of people do you have in your theater company? Did the company/did you achieve – from 2001 – what you plan to achieve? Are you satisfied? We have 21 staff and company members (11 women and 10 men), and they are very diverse coming from India, China, Brazil, African Americans, Germans, Jews, Italians, Hearing, Deaf, other disabilities. I think in 7 seasons we have presented great work, made a name for ourselves (we really are one of the well known off-off Broadway companies) and now have a home theater space, which is rare for a company. We have been interviewed and highlighted in papers and on film and begin to change perceptions of what theater can do – We are at the forefront of being risk taking and casting differently. I am satisfied but am always planning ahead and for more creation.

- Please do tell me the story of those years (from 2001 till now) – the story of the company, of the actors, of the pieces you put on stage… Reactions? Bad or good? Prizes along the way? People satisfied? You, satisfied? I’ve read articles even in The New York Times… How is the company valued, given the other theater companies in New York promoting diversity, promoting the rights of the minorities, battling with stereotypes? I think we are the leader in diverse companies in the city. The year we began there were 352 companies started in the city – there are now 2 left. We are one of the few with their own space and we are in two documentaries later this year, the NY Times has begun to cover us regularly, we teach classes and host discussions about art – and in the entryway to our theater there is a founder plaque with the three names of the founders, but it is underneath the last photo taken of Nicu. He is always with us – a small photo of him is on each set, hidden but there so he is with us as we do our work – it has become a company tradition. Sometimes we have mixed reviews but that’s fine, we like to shake up what people think things should be – ‘a black man shouldn’t play this role’ – you can be sure we will break that taboo. Our audiences are abled and disabled and a variety of colors and ages and that’s how we like it.

- At the moment, plans, projects (reagarding the company)? To finish the 2007 season (our fall production is associate produced with NY Deaf Theater and has deaf and hearing actors playing the same roles at the same times) and continue to be in the habit of running our new space. Our 2008 season is planned out already (It is about Women and gender) and continuing talks about 2009 which may be about the marginalized groups who are spiritual, as opposed to religious. We also plan to continue projects to educate preschoolers about theater arts, deaf projects, seminars and classes about acting and theater and more.

- How is your life, at the moment? Family, your daughter? What are they doing? Have you came to Romania recently? What have you told your daughter about Romania? What does your husband say to her? Her name? Your husband name? Friends and relatives here, in Romania? My life is busy, to say the least! I am still married to my man, Mihai, (15 years this December) and we have a lovely girl Sophie who is 5 and who will go into kindergarten this year. She has become a second mascot, along with Nicu for our company. We took her to Romania 2 years ago and my husband went back last year as well – we write and email like crazy too. I tell her all about Romania and she knows she is half Romanian and that she has a Bunica and Bunicul in Arad (Familia Farcas). She also knows that she has a kind of brother named Nicu, but he can’t be with us now because he is watching us from heaven. Her uncle Teddy Craciunescu is in Bucharest as well. But the change over at Constanta has been huge so very few people are there who were there years ago when I was and that is OK. The children are still alright and loved. My boy Claudio died in 2002, so at Casa Speranta in Constanta there are only Tavi and Nela left of my babies – but they go to the regular neighborhood school and excel in classes. I am very proud of them as I was their first real Mama.

- What are you planning to do in the future? To continue what you are doing with the company… I believe I’ve read about an award given to you, as an artistic director of the company for promoting diversity? Are there any other people who helped you to found the theater company… My co-founders Julie (who is on maternity leave) and Natily (who stopped acting in 2003) are still around and our future plans are to continue and grow, develop more new work, be more involved with the local community, and to continue to search out those artists who are ‘different’ and don’t get work because of it – our view is if you are good, you should work – it doesn’t matter what country you are from or if you are disabled – we’ll all work together to make art.

- Feel free to tell me about your company detailes/stories that I haven’t asked about…
Well, let me attach our company resume and some company bios as that will give you a lot of information for that question.

- Would you say that Nicu greatly influenced your life, determined you to found a theater company with a specific purpose? I think Nicu changed my life, I just didn’t know it at the time – I was too busy trying to change his and the other kids. But yes, he is the center of the ideals of the company- that anything can be done, that taking risks has to happen, that love and hard work can conquer hate and prejudice, that ‘disabled’ is just a word. He is the center and meaning of our mission.

- What about the actors with disabilities that the theater company promote… “because they are good, not because they have disabilities”…. We have worked with and continue to work with all kinds of differently abled and colored artists because they are good. It is other peoples problems that they can’t see beyond the color, or ethnicity or disability – we see beyond it and work with these amazing artists and designers and we are all changed for the better – and the work we do is all the more rich and fascinating because we don’t cast it the ways you might expect so the audience is always a bit surprised.

- Are there any Romanians in the company? Not at the moment – we have worked with a few over the years, mostly they have been technical people – stage managers or designers, but I always welcome hearing from them (and love the chance to speak Romanian in the theater), I actually had met Maia Morgenstern in Bucharest a few times when I worked for the Soros Foundation and had recently contacted her to ask her to be on our honorary board (as she is an AMAZING actress) but I have not heard back from her yet.

- Are you in touch with some Romanians? 4 years is quite a long period of time… Of, I forgot: where did you stay when living in Romania? I am in touch with some for certain, and do keep tabs as best I can, on Tavi (who has now moved into a transitional home in Constanta with other boys) and Nela. I don’t impact on their lives though as they are living them and have no more need of me. Over the years many groups have helped the Romanian staff and continued donations as well in Constanta. Some good websites and articles are:
http://www.starcross.org/casa_speranta.html
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/99/hiv/romaniacover.html

- Were there other countries you worked in during those times?
After that I traveled and worked all over the world – Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Uganda, Kenya, East Timor, Australia, and more – but all the travel was before I had my daughter as I knew it would be harder to do anything once I had a child. As she gets older we travel when we can and when I am not hard at work with the theater – I do hope to take her to Africa and Asia. But it has been a long time since going back to Casa Speranta – and I am not needed there now. Tavi and Nela, the two remaining of my 5 kids, are teenagers now and have their own lives filled with school and friends. I have done my job for them and gave them a great start and loved them till they were well enough to move on and grow up. That’s the best we can do for anyone!

Published: July 20, 2007

RICHARD III In the midst of its seventh season, Nicu’s Spoon is doing something a lot of other small companies might envy: opening a show in its own theater.

Henry Holden in the Nicu’s Spoon production of “Richard III.”
Photo: Trinidad Mac-Auliffe

Shortly after signing an eight-year lease in April, the company is offering Shakespeare’s “Richard III” at the newly named Spoon Theater. “Richard III,” directed by Heidi Lauren Duke, is typical Nicu’s Spoon fare, which means it is not at all typical. The company, run by its artistic director, Stephanie Barton-Farcas, attempts to challenge stereotypes by collaborating with artists from across the spectrum of ethnicities and abilities; a production of “Buried Child” last year featured a spoken performance by a deaf actor accustomed to performing in American Sign Language.

In “Richard III,” Henry Holden is Shakespeare’s villainous king who was “cheated of feature by dissembling nature” and, partly out of bitterness at his physical deformity, resorts to evil. In the mouth of Mr. Holden, who contracted polio in 1952 at 4 and walks with crutches, Richard’s words take on a more particular meaning, focusing the play directly and inescapably on the issue of disability.

Nicu’s Spoon has dedicated its entire current season to the theme of disability and will hold a panel discussion on July 31 called “Beyond Handicaps and Handouts: The New Face of Disability in the Arts.” Panelists will include, among others, Ms. Barton-Farcas, Mr. Holden and Ike Shambelan, the co-artistic director of Theater by the Blind.

Nicu’s Spoon is also offering a summer reading series. Scheduled for Monday is “Identity,” a semi-autobiographical piece by Nicholas Linnehan, a playwright with cerebral palsy. (Mr. Linnehan plays the lead role, too.) “Forgiveness of the Saints,” a black comedy by Christian Gaul, is on Tuesday. (“Richard III” runs through July 29, Wednesday through Sunday at 8 p.m., Spoon Theater, 38 West 38th Street, fifth floor, Manhattan, 212-352-3101, theatermania.com; $18. Information on the panel discussion, readings and fall productions is at spoontheater.org.) STEVEN McELROY

“I need a wheelchair,” Stephanie Barton-Farcas once heard a casting director say during a panel discussion on casting diverse actors.

“You personally need a wheelchair?” she queried. “Or do you need an actor in a wheelchair to play a role for you? “They’re not called wheelchairs,” she corrected him. “They’re called human beings.”

Since 2001, Barton-Farcas’s theater company, Nicu’s Spoon, has worked to de-objectify its diverse base of performers to create a dynamic and proficient group of artists. With a proven commitment to working for social change in theater by populating it—both onstage and backstage—with performers of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, and abilities, Nicu’s Spoon has produced risky and thought-provoking productions, earning kudos from both audiences and critics.

And now, following its production of Constance Congdon’s quirky and poignant comedy Tales of the Lost Formicans (which opened March 28), the company will move into a new home—an entire floor at 38 West 38th Street that is, by design, fully accessible to anyone.

Formicans kicks off a season dedicated to investigating disability issues onstage. A creative reimagining of Shakespeare’s Richard III will premiere in the new venue this summer, followed by Kosher Harry, an absurdist comedy animated by both hearing and deaf artists. (Previous seasons have focused on the lives of female refugees and the multiracial casting of classic dramas; next season will address women and identity.)

Congdon’s play focuses on the breakdown of communication within a family, powerfully underscoring the destruction of community on a more global level. When a woman discovers that her husband has been cheating on her, she leaves her life in New York to move back to her childhood home in suburban Colorado. With her angst-ridden teenage son in tow, she arrives home to help care for her aging father, whose health is decaying rapidly from Alzheimer’s.

Nico Phillips and Rebecca Challis in “Tales of the Lost Formicans” As the father moves in and out of lucidity, the family must confront a world in which their most vital anchor is drifting away. And when a group of aliens arrives, they provide an objective and almost anthropological perspective on the sometimes twisted ways in which human beings cope with life and death.

With Formicans, Brett Maughan makes his mainstage directing debut in New York after helming several readings for the company, and he has uncovered plenty of incendiary topics to probe within the script. “It’s a question that doesn’t go away for us,” he says. “What do we do now that our community and families are falling apart?”

The company’s namesake is an abandoned boy whom Barton-Farcas took care of in Romania in the 1990s. Although Nicu was 5 years old, he couldn’t walk, talk, or feed himself. “They told me he was deaf, autistic, and retarded,” Barton-Farcas remembers. “I got angry and said, ‘I’ll take him.’ ”

Six hard-fought months later, he could both walk and talk, and Barton-Farcas was captivated as she watched him bounce sunlight off of his spoon, the first utensil he was able to use and the tool that brought him back to life both physically and emotionally. Although he would die from HIV complications five years later, he was able to enjoy his brief life to the fullest.

“Nicu’s spoon became the symbol for all the impossible things that were suddenly possible,” Barton-Farcas says. A theater company was born—and christened.

Recently, Barton-Farcas began working with Nico Phillips, who is playing one of the principal roles in Formicans. In addition to their similar first names, Phillips has demonstrated much of the resilience and tenacity that came to define the orphaned Nicu.

In fact, Phillips’s trajectory with Nicu’s Spoon has been something of a Cinderella story in itself. When the actor playing Eric (the edgy and tormented son) had to leave the production suddenly because of complications from his cerebral palsy, Barton-Farcas immediately remembered Phillips, who had begun to express interest in working with the company.

Phillips, who has a different form of cerebral palsy (spastic dysplasia, which affects coordination, balance, and muscle control), has been thrilled over the opportunity to perform, and Barton- Farcas is ecstatic about what he brings to the role and the production.

“We like to cast disabled actors in [stereotypically] nondisabled roles,” she says. “Nico is playing a typical angst- and rage-filled teenager, and the disability creates different levels and layers within that rage, angst, and pain—both in his mother’s anger at him and in his anger with her.”

Nicu’s Spoon offered a similar opportunity to another disabled actor in last fall’s production of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, in which Darren Fudenske, who is deaf-mute, appeared onstage in his first speaking role. His presence intensified the level of denial in a family that—in this production—couldn’t bear to acknowledge that their own son and brother was disabled.

Although Barton-Farcas concedes that “it’s exploitative when you have a token disabled person” in a production, she quickly points to Nicu’s Spoon’s continued commitment to capitalizing on the multiple strengths of its dedicated artists. She stresses that she never casts actors only because they are disabled—she casts them only if they are brilliant artists. For her part, she draws out the multitaskers and encourages people to contribute in whatever way they can. In the case of Phillips, who at first was only interested in participating in the technical side of theater, Barton-Farcas encouraged him to push himself even further.

When she asked him what else he could do, he replied, “Well, I used to act …” That simple defeatist phrase, Barton-Farcas says, is one that she constantly hears from disabled theater artists who have been repeatedly told that they can’t (or can no longer, if they’ve recently been disabled) participate fully in theater—or, by extension, in life generally.

“I’m a big advocate of, ‘Well, you can do it now!’ ” she says, laughing.

The work is sometimes easier said than done, however, and she admits, “It’s challenging when you have to convince them that they’re still artists.”

Brian Coffey and Celia Bressack in “Tales of the Lost Formicans” But it’s a challenge Nicu’s Spoon will be able to address on an even larger scale from its new permanent location. Barton-Farcas looks forward to sharing the company’s space and resources with other like-minded groups (such as the Brooklyn-based New York Deaf Theater) that might not otherwise have the means to put on a production in Manhattan. Free from the added physical and financial stress of loading in and out of various venues, she is eager to focus her energy on answering the needs of the community, including facilitating audition classes for disabled actors.

As she looks to the future, Barton-Farcas cites this year’s Oscar nominees (the most diverse pool to date) as an example of how the entertainment industry is slowly evolving to embrace a broader, more expansive range of artists that reflect the country’s diversity.

“The future of theater and film is going to be a meshing of everybody,” she predicts. “Our job is to take all of those people and put them onstage.”

Tales of the Lost Formicans is playing through April 15 at Theater 54 (244 West 54th Street). Tickets are available at http://www.smarttix.com. For more information, visit the company’s Web site: http://www.spoontheater.org. Click here to watch actor Nico Phillips in a clip from Sesame Street when he was 6 years old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y82OZmlypIQ

United Stages - March 2007

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NY Theater.com - April 2005

OffOff Online - April 2005

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Columbia School of Journalism - November 2004

NY Theater.com - April 2003

TheaterScene - April 2003

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Village Voice - November 2003

Foundation Center Spotlight - March 2002

NYTheater.com Interview - March 2002

Backstage - May 2002

Greenwich Village Gazette - June 2001