Spinning Tree Theatre co-founders (front left to right) Michael Grayman-Parkhurst and Andrew Grayman-Parkhurst (shown in multiple) inside The Black Box Theater at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center (photo by Jim Barcus)
Spinning Tree Theatre celebrates 15 years with a groundbreaking commitment to accessibility
Do you know that feeling when you’re listening to someone talk about something with such intense, infectious passion that you can’t help but get excited about the subject as well? That’s what it’s like talking to Andrew and Michael Grayman-Parkhurst about accessibility in theater.
The Grayman-Parkhursts are the founders of Spinning Tree Theatre, which marks its 15th anniversary this year. The company has made a name for itself producing quality works featuring young artists of all abilities. But that wasn’t always their focus.
Michael and Andrew got the idea to form their own company when living in New York, working on Broadway and in touring theater. But they didn’t take the leap until they moved to Andrew’s hometown of Kansas City.
For their first production, they wanted to choose a work that would introduce them to the arts scene honestly and authentically, that would represent their aesthetics and their values. They landed on the Off-Broadway revue “Make Me a Song: The Music of William Finn,” honoring the Broadway lyricist and composer who celebrated queer and Jewish identities.
In Spinning Tree’s first year, they produced just that one show. In their second year, they did two productions and in their third year, three. The focus was mounting Kansas City premieres of smaller contemporary musicals and scaled-down versions of classic musicals. They bounced around various homes, doing shows at what was then the Off Center Theatre in Crown Center (now Music Theatre Heritage’s permanent space) and the Just Off Broadway Theatre (home to KC Melting Pot Theatre), before landing in their permanent space at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center.
Then 2020 happened.
Like every other theater company, when COVID-19 hit the U.S., Spinning Tree had to go dark, canceling what was to be its 10th season. During that time, the Grayman-Parkhursts ended up reimagining their entire mission.
The previous year, in the summer of 2019, Michael and Andrew had partnered with Variety Children’s Charity of Greater Kansas City, a nonprofit that works to provide children with disabilities medical and therapeutic equipment and therapies, as well as empowering, inclusive enrichment programs. The Grayman-Parkhursts led a summer theater camp for young artists both with and without perceivable disabilities. For their production, they chose “Starlight Express.”
The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about a children’s train set come to life is, at its core, an exploration of how bodies move through the world. The experience shifted the way the Grayman-Parkhursts viewed theater.
“During the project, Michael and I fell in love with doing theater in this way,” Andrew tells me. “It felt really exciting to us to meet each of the young artists where they were. So we had young artists in wheelchairs, we had young artists with autism, with ADHD, anxiety, with all sorts of different diagnoses, and some maybe without diagnoses.
“And then we had young artists who had done Broadway National Tours that were in the show, and kids without perceptible disabilities. And we just fell in love with the vibe in the room, of ‘everybody do your best,’ and it felt like it brought out the highest version of all of us.”
Michael and Andrew brought that experience back and made it foundational to the new Spinning Tree. They now produce multiple works every year, including commissioning new works from local playwrights, featuring young artists of all abilities onstage and behind the scenes. They host an annual Teen Writers Fest, pairing young writers with professional mentors to develop original scripts that are then performed by a cast of young actors. They’re kicking off their 15th season with the musical “Carrie” (Nov. 1-9) — a show about a young girl expressing herself and overcoming bullying that they said the young artists auditioning made it clear they really relate to.
They’re also in something of a growth phase. They’re passionate about raising the standard of accessibility in theater. They’re currently getting involved in neuroarts, how the arts can measurably change a person’s brain and body. (The shows at Spinning Tree always seemed to me to be transformative for the young artists — it seems that might literally be true.)
This summer, the Grayman-Parkhursts pushed themselves with a new large-scale undertaking, mounting a production of “Annie” in partnership with Variety KC. The musical ran at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and featured a cast of about 60 young artists and adults of all abilities. It was, according to Variety KC, “the city’s first fully inclusive professional musical theater production.”
“This isn’t a one-time feel-good story — it’s a new standard,” Marc Harrell, executive producer of the Variety Show and executive director of Variety KC, said in a statement. “We’re not just adding a few kids with disabilities into minor roles. We’re building a stage where belonging is the default, not the exception.”
That sort of authentic inclusion is the driving mission for the Grayman-Parkhursts. Key to all of it is their enthusiasm for listening, learning and progress. It’s also essential, as Michael puts it, to “embrace the unpredictability of it.”
“I think there’s probably some people in theater that have been maybe scared to have people with disabilities in their shows because they don’t know what’s going to happen. Whereas we now find that very exciting,” says Michael.
“If there is one night where someone does not want to come onstage, OK, we adapt. If this person needs a buddy to help them get off and onstage, we do that every single night. There’s someone waiting off in the wings to greet them, we do that and we love it. And part of the creative process is making it work for that person.
“Those experiences are about their opportunities,” Michael says of the young artists. “And it’s a really fun way to approach theater because you don’t have to be afraid anymore that it’s not going to be perfect, that the audience is going to understand. I think audiences come to our shows with the understanding that that can happen, but maybe they’re also looking for that.”
For more information and tickets, spinningtreetheatre.com.
