Republished from The Current
Don Schexnider rolls onto the stage of Cité des Arts’ main theater for his performance at the 2024 Coullion Fest standup comedy festival wearing a bright orange shirt and a wry smile.
For him to perform, his comedy group required him to make an announcement, Schexnider tells the audience. “I don’t do standup comedy,” he says with a smirk. “And you’re not getting your money back.”
Schexnider is one of several members of Oof Comedy, a Lafayette-based group of comics, who rely on wheelchairs to get around. Having limited mobility is a challenge in most circumstances, but for the comics, inaccessible venues make it difficult to practice their craft — and they’re willing to put up a fight.
Like Schexnider, fellow comic Joshua Ewing makes jokes about his disability and life with it a regular part of his routine. Sometimes, the infrastructure of the venue makes it unavoidable, like when he has to be lifted onto a stage that doesn’t have a ramp, putting a spotlight on his disability before the first joke is told.
“It can be in-dignifying, but it can also be a good opener,” Ewing said. “That’s where ‘making fun’ comes from: You take a shitty situation and make it fun.”
Then there are situations that make it harder for Ewing to hold on to his good humor. Like last year, when the group started holding a weekly standup open mic at a local venue downtown. The venue, housed in an older building, wasn’t accessible to people using wheelchairs, unless they were willing to be lifted up and down a flight of stairs, often by other comics or patrons who may have been drinking.
Scared of falling, Ewing didn’t feel it was safe to participate.“What did you want me to do, go there and risk being injured every week?” Ewing wondered out loud. The bathrooms, too, were inaccessible, Ewing and Schexnider said. The owners dismissed their concerns and dragged their feet in making changes, according to the comics.
With every week and month that passed, Ewing missed out on an opportunity to perform with his fellow comics and hone his craft. “It’s the gym for comics. Nobody can practice their comedy unless they can do open mics,” fellow comic John Merrifield said. “That’s the backbone of the comedy scene.”
The venue, Artmosphere on Johnston Street, eventually built ramps that allow people in wheelchairs to access the building independently, roughly a year after the group started performing there and Ewing began lodging his complaints. Once the ramps were built, Ewing was subsequently banned from the venue, the comics say, as retaliation. Owner Kade Trahan declined to comment on the matter. Oof ComedyThe group now holds weekly open mic nights at Cité des Arts.
Renovations to make a privately-owned building more accessible aren’t always required by law, leaving some business owners to decide whether they want to build ramps, widen bathrooms or add fixtures. “That is something that a lot of times businesses are afraid to address, because they think it’ll be costly,” said Liam Doyle, assistant director of the Governor’s Office of Disability Affairs.
In his previous role as disability affairs coordinator for Lafayette Consolidated Government, Doyle helped local businesses, such as Old Tyme Grocery, become more accessible to people with disabilities.
