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(Backdrop photos, synchronized with script, provide a sense of time and place)

“My Black Bird Has Flown Away"

"My Black Bird Has Flown Away" is a one hour monologue performed in a wheel chair on the life of author, historian and disability advocate Hugh Gregory Gallagher, an Oxford scholar and 1995 recipient of the Henry Betts Prize for lifetime contributions improving the lives of persons with disabilities.

Gallagher lost use of his legs to polio at age 19 (in 1952) and used a wheelchair the rest of his life.  He suffered depression in his 40s. His life personifies the inextricable link between physical and mental wellness. 

He authored the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, championed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and was instrumental in placing a statue of Franklin Roosevelt in a wheelchair at the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C.  Perhaps best known among his award-winning books is FDR’s Splendid Deception, an analysis of polio’s effects on FDR’s personality and presidency.  Gallagher died of cancer in 2004.

“When you can enjoy a play and learn something at the same time, you just can’t beat that.”
-Steven Williams, Senior Director, Conmed Healthcare Management, Inc., Cambridge, Maryland

“Bob Chauncey was superb. He brought Hugh Gallagher to life.  The script was wonderful.”
Kathi Froelke, Vienna, Virginia

“It needs a national showcase.  Broadway?  Kennedy Center?  What a tour de force by actor and author about an extraordinary life.”
Lisa May, Counselor, Talbot Hospice, Federalsburg, Maryland

“This moving play about a remarkable achiever highlights the history of disabled persons with lessons for today.  I hope it will be performed at colleges and disability forums across the country.”
Frank Milone, M.D., Easton, Maryland
                                               
“Gallagher’s experience remains relevant to those suffering physical disabilities and mental trauma today, including those of veterans returning with missing limbs and post traumatic stress.”
Harry Shaw, Ph.D., Easton, Maryland

“Hugh’s most outstanding contribution to the quality of life of people with disabilities was to successfully place disability rights on Congress’s table for the first time.”
Former Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas), Washington, D.C.
                                                 
“Gallagher made disability rights not only his agenda but the agenda of America.”
Lorenzo Milam, Gallagher’s roommate at Roosevelt Warm Springs and lifelong friend California/Mexico

“Gallagher was a leader who fought unceasingly to make life better for persons with disabilities.”
Rev. Dave Seymour, Wheelchair user, Cerebral Palsy Founding Chairman, disAbility Coalition of Talbot County, St. Michaels, Maryland

“To remember someone whom we have loved who has died is to have the courage to try, each in his or her own way, to make that person present now. Hugh was gifted, principled and productive.  We must try to give to each other what Hugh gave to us.”
Father A. Aidan, Eulogy, celebration of Hugh Gallagher’s life, July 25, 2004, Washington, D.C.
                                             
“I try to imagine I can never walk again, never rise from this wheelchair or play on the floor with my small grandchildren.  It sobers and enlightens me and helps me play this difficult role.”
Robert Chauncey, Actor, “My Black Bird Has Flown Away”, Chestertown, Maryland
                                                
“We had a wonderful evening in Easton.  The play is fantastic, extremely well done.  It gives a marvelous profile of Hugh and is a terrific statement of all the issues that were important to him.  The acting was superb.  At times one forgot it wasn’t Hugh.  The actor moved about in his wheelchair exactly the way Hugh used to.  It was an evening to remember.”                                          
Betsy Stephens, Gallagher Family friend, Montana

“My son Tim and his wife Kathleen raved about the play.  They thought the actor did such a good job and found the script to be just right because it beautifully expressed things Hugh did and cared about.”
Janet Hermans, Hugh Gallagher’s sister, Botswana, Africa
 
“The play captures FDR’s positive spirit.  Memories are still fresh for those who were children when the president was here. They saw him wheel down the wide, tile-floored entrance to Georgia Hall to a corner table where he played poker while sipping a martini.  He watched their variety shows, including one that mimicked his cocked head with cigarette holder jutting upward.”
Frank Ruzycki, Director, Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute, 1986-2004, Warm Springs, Georgia

                                              **
“Ever had a love-hate relationship?  I had one with the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt . . . admired him . . . resented him . . . envied him . . . wanted to emulate him . . . and resolved never to emulate him.”

“Yet FDR was supremely confident . . . calming a panicked nation with fireside chats . . . instilling hope . . . reducing anxiety.  Chin tilted high he assured citizens they had nothing to fear but fear itself . . . and put people back to work on government projects . . . while hiding the severity of his own disability.”                       
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“I never knew it was possible to suffer such constant excruciating pain.  When I could no longer stand it I passed out.  I wanted to give up . . . received last rites of the Episcopal Church and said goodbye to my mother.  But she gazed at me with such profound sadness I promised I would try to stay alive . . . one more day.”
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“FDR’s positive thinking permeated Roosevelt Warm Springs . . . buoyed our spirits.  We produced plays . . . composed songs and wrote essays lampooning our daily challenges.  Hollywood celebrities visited.  Bridge tournaments thrived.  Laughter and gossip filled our days . .
and I learned to have fun again . . . to be me . . . in a wheelchair and submerge my fear and anger.  No one of us in that band of polios could have built a façade alone.  Together we succeeded . . .  but only superficially.”
                                            **                 

“In 1995 . . .  on the 50th anniversary of FDR’s death . . . three author historians were invited to speak from the front patio of the Little White house . . . Doris Kearns Goodwin . . . Arthur Schlesinger Jr. . . . and Hugh Gregory Gallagher.  I was the one in a wheelchair.”
                                              **

“The history of disabled persons in America is deeply disturbing . . . most lived with their families . . . hidden away . . . an invisible minority . . . transportation and buildings were designed for the able-bodied.  Many disabled persons were institutionalized more for convenience than necessity and too many were abandoned. Society added stigma . . . as if disabled persons were somehow responsible for their own birth defects, illnesses and injuries.   They too often saw themselves as neighbors saw them . . . marginalized and unproductive.”
                                             **
                                  
“Germany’s Adolph Hitler ordered the systematic murder of persons with disabilities in the 1930s.  His master propagandist Joseph Goebbels said disabled persons were ‘worthless eaters whose lives were not worth living.’  Developmentally disabled children in boarding schools taken on picnics never returned.  Parents received letters lamenting their unexpected deaths.  German physicians decided who would live or die.  Guards did the killing.  I interviewed a former guard asking how he could possibly murder defenseless disabled children.  ‘Well, it was difficult at first,’ he sighed, ‘but one got used to it.’”
                                              **
                                               
“I was the only disabled staff member on Capitol Hill when I went to work for Senator John Carroll of Colorado . . . no accessible rest
rooms . . . an empty coffee can my urinal. .. and a curb inside the Senate garage might as well have been a wall.”
                                                **
“I drafted the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 . . . the first step in a twenty-two year crusade to enact the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,”
                                                **
                                          
“The sky was falling at the Library of Congress when we had the gall to suggest a ramp there.  Committees were formed.  A task force convened.  Special board meetings debated this grave issue.  With misgivings and complaints a ramp was installed at the back entrance.”
                                     **
                                                 
“Bobby Kennedy worked with us to amend the Minimum Wage Act to include disabled persons in sheltered workshops.  That was the last time I saw him.   My Cinderella Days in Washington ended with murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy followed by Senator Bob Bartlett’s death after a long illness.  1968 was a traumatic year for the nation and for me personally.”
                                                   **

“My façade began to crumble on my fortieth birthday . . . laughing and drinking with friends . . . my black bird returned . . . flapping its wings violently over my head . . . descending in the early morn to perch boldly on my shoulder.  I was petrified.  Fearful of being alone I drank heavily and slept fitfully and did not return to work for three weeks.  Psychiatric counseling helped me come to terms with reality and accept the help I’d long denied but urgently needed.  I became a stronger more creative and productive person and saw my psychiatrist almost every  week the rest of my life.  I needed counseling as much as a diabetic needs insulin and surely as much as I needed my wheelchair.” 
                                               **

“Polio and depression shaped and tempered me as steel is hardened in a fiery furnace.  From pain and loss came learning and wisdom.  I lived a different and better life the last third of my days.”
                                               **

 “Each of us is one illness or injury from a disability.  Every American who is not himself disabled has a family member who is.  Many wear glasses, hearing aids, pacemakers . . . some wear colostomy bags, carry white canes and use sign language.  We’re all members of the same human family with shared dreams and aspirations . . . striving to live independently and contribute to society.  Many people are disabled but few are handicapped.  We all have something to contribute.”

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The Hugh Gregory Gallagher MOTIVATIONAL THEATRE
Easton, Maryland 21601
410-820-8316
info@MotivationalTheatre.com

Copyright all plays: Carlton E. Spitzer and The Hugh Gregory Gallagher MOTIVATIONAL THEATRE, Inc.

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