Bio – Lab 2023 In-Person

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Iqsa Aqilah

Iqsa Aqilah is a casting and directing professional who specializes in creating dynamic stories that encourage humanity and insanity. As an educational entertainer, she uses play as the universal language within their art to portray neurodivergence, cultural variety, and the human body in a mindful way. Growing up in 4 different countries has colored Iqsa’s perspective on uniting on the strength of our differences; a sentiment she wishes to share with the world.

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After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Chrissy Marshall

Chrissy Marshall is a writer and director based in Los Angeles whose work is characterized by her unwavering commitment to community, innovation, and adaptation. A distinguished alumna of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, Chrissy is renowned for her creative vision and tenacity in championing the authentic and equitable portrayal of diverse experiences.

Her independent projects include a number of ASL-signed music videos and a dance short on the subject of “Inspiration Porn,” a phenomenon that has long plagued the disability community. Chrissy’s award-winning short films, such as “I.L.Y.,” are celebrated for their powerful awareness campaigns that showcase disabled talent both in front of and behind the camera. Her most recent film, “Hardly What You Want to Hear,” which she wrote and directed, is a gripping sci-fi/Thriller drama about a newly engaged hard-of-hearing woman whose hearing aid gets HACKED. The film has garnered attention, earning a place in the annual IndieX and Film Independent festival lineup.

Chrissy is an artist with a keen eye for detail and a passion for exploring the darker side of feminine energy, abstract plot structures, and unconventional settings. She desires to share untold and profoundly moving stories with creative conflicts that provoke thought and inspire change.

Beyond her work as a filmmaker, Chrissy is a tireless advocate for Deaf and hard-of-hearing children, dedicated to promoting the importance of implementing accessibility and signed languages. She is originally from Maryland and has three older sisters in STEM, a bunny, and a working service dog. She volunteers actively in her community, participating in item drives, teaching sign language to children, and supporting the LA animal shelter.

As a Disabled Queer woman, Chrissy’s experiences and unique perspective on the world have shaped her storytelling ability. Raised in a hearing family that did not use sign language, Chrissy’s perceptive gaze has become invaluable in crafting her language and understanding of the world. Fluent in English and American Sign Language, she aims to develop socially conscious material for underrepresented voices while advocating for equity in the entertainment industry. Her work continues to earn recognition for her creative talents, passionate social activism, and dedication to educating people about accessibility and ASL.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Stephan Collins-Stepney

Stephan Collins-Stepney (He/They) is a screenwriter and playwright who holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for the Stage and Screen from Queens University of Charlotte. His original play “FREEDOM” & one-person Black history play, “B.A.D. (Black And Defiant)” were in the ‘Best Bets’ category at the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC. Stephan’s play Williams & Walker: The Legacy of Two Real Men was featured at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC. Their play “Omar’s Best Friend” was performed for Arkansas Tobacco Control. Stephan participated in The 48 Hour Film Project Chicago as a screenwriter for the film short, “The Winning Number” and wrote the screenplay for the film short, “The Groundskeeper” for independent production company JayisBack productions. Stephan also wrote and produced a one-woman Black history play, “If I’m Lyin’, I’m Flyin’: The Story of Bessie Coleman.” His pilot, “SHORTY DOO-WOP, ESQUIRE” is a finalist for The Script Lab’s Screenwriting Competition. Stephan’s goal is to expand the representation of Black, disabled, and neurodivergent people on the big and small screen with relatable three-dimensional portrayals.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Matthew Charles

Matthew Charles is a Black writer hailing from Minnesota. After graduating from Chapman University with a Bachelors in Screenwriting, he’s made the rounds writing on all sorts of projects including short films, video games, online nerd magazines, podcasts, D&D books, and more.

A type-1 diabetic, he’s got enough technology hooked up to him now that he prefers to think of himself as a cyborg. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, biking, cooking, and playing games of all kinds.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Robert Burns

Robert Burns is a recent MFA graduate from Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts with a concentration in Directing. Quiet and reserved during his adolescence, Robert enrolled in a four-year film production program during his time in high school. Here, he forged a deep love for filmmaking and using the medium to convey personal stories based on his life growing up with autism. He aims to tell stories about people grappling with loss, isolation, and neurological conditions who work through these challenges to achieve their ambitions and connect with others on a deeper level. He garners inspiration from directors and films who cover similar themes and tones, such as Charlie Kaufman (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”), Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”), and Krzysztof Kieslowski (the “Three Colors” trilogy).

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Radha Mehta

Radha Mehta has been a filmmaker throughout the past decade and is currently completing her MFA in Film and Directing at American Film Institute, with an expected graduation date of May 2023. Her past documentary and narrative films have been focused on topics she experienced within her own upbringing as a woman of color and within her South Asian diaspora, ranging from being an immigrant in the US, to dismantling cultural taboos around mental and physical health, to women empowerment rising above family expectations or toxic relationships, and the challenges of being sandwiched between parenting and looking after our elders.

As a South Asian woman, a daughter of immigrants from India, a survivor of toxic relationships, a lucky wife to a Latino Army Ranger War Veteran, a mother of two, and having been hard-of-hearing since she was 6 months old, Radha feels these different identifiers make her a part of unique communities which have provided her a depth of lived experiences that shape her process as a storyteller. She aims to bring empathy and hope in all the stories she tells with characters who rise above their given circumstances.

Prior to Radha’s career as a filmmaker, she earned undergraduate degrees in Computer Science, Economics, and Business Management from Duke University, and an MBA from Kellogg School for Management at Northwestern University.  She had served as a Partner of her family business in civil engineering for nearly 2 decades. Throughout that time, she actively pursued a side hustle as a singer/songwriter with several original songs placed in film and television across networks such as E!, VH1, MTV, OWN, and Lifetime networks. She also actively pursued a side hustle of painting (abstract and watercolor portraiture) and has had original works exhibited in galleries and museums throughout Florida and California.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Rick Cisario

Rick Cisario is an Italian Jew who graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Some have money on the mind; Rick has a lesion on his brain. Doctors say it causes seizures, but Rick thinks it makes him seize the day. Rick has developed pilots with Party Over Here (Lonely Island) and CBS studios; sadly, they were deemed too brilliant to air. His Facebook Watch VR short premiered at SXSW. His feature OLD PALS is in development with Debbie Liebling and Corporate Witchcraft, with Wendey Stanzler attached to direct. He was dropped by CAA, but we’ll call it mutual.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Maggie Whittum

Maggie Whittum is a filmmaker, theatre artist, disability advocate, public speaker and stroke survivor. She is re-emerging into life as an artist, after having suffered a massive brainstem stroke (caused by a cavernous angioma) in 2014 at age 33. She just finished acting in the world-premiere immersive experience Theater of the Mind, created by David Byrne & Mala Gaonkar.  She often performs with the ‘disability affirmative’ Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver, CO, which exclusively casts actors with disabilities. Previous theatre directing and producing credits include All in the Timing, The Zoo Story, Into the Woods and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. She has directed and produced plays, musicals and improv comedy in Scotland, Colorado, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing and throughout Canada. She also assistant-directed under Tony Award winner Rebecca Taichman and Peabody Award winner Emily Mann at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ, where she was named the Charles Evans Fellow (2012). Commercial acting credits include MapQuest, Samsung and Starz/Encore.

Maggie speaks at conferences, universities, hospitals, and medical schools about her story of stroke, disability and identity. She has spoken at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Georgetown Hospital, Craig Hospital, and the ACCAC ‘One World One Family’ Conference and Cultural Exchange Festival, among others. Maggie is a proud member of FWD-DOC (Documentary Filmmakers With Disabilities) and The D-Word (an online community for professionals in the documentary film industry). Maggie is executive producing and co-writing a feature length documentary film The Great Now What, about resilience in the aftermath of a major health crisis. The Great Now What is an empowering and life-affirming film that humanizes the experience of stroke, disability and chronic pain. It is currently in production and planned to be released in 2025.

Maggie’s goal in life is to engender more empathy and compassion in American society for people with disabilities. She is keen to create more visibility for disabled talent and more projects helmed by disabled people.

Maggie is a graduate of Colorado College.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.

RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023

Toby Parker Rees

Toby Parker Rees is a writer and filmmaker based in the UK. He was one of three writers selected from thousands of entries to write a half-hour film for Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning new talent strand On The Edge. Toby’s script is a mermaid tragicomedy about finding yourself all of a sudden in a body that won’t do what you want it to, based on his experiences with adult-onset epilepsy. The film, which stars Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education) and Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones), recently finished post-production and will be broadcast later in the year.

Toby developed epilepsy nearly fifteen years ago and has been living with it ever since. His work increasingly attempts to represent the reality of living with epilepsy, especially the uncanny numinous feeling on the other side of a seizure – somewhere between pure panic and silly ecstasy, not yet quite yourself again.

He started writing after a bad experience as an actor in a touring Shakespeare production – a group of children with Down Syndrome were made to feel unwelcome and rude for enjoying the play too audibly. Toby was performing with his arm in a sling that night after dislocating his shoulder in a violent seizure, so it felt particularly galling to listen to some of the cast, crew, and venue staff talk about disabled people as an inconvenience. Since then, he has tried to make work that is inclusive in both form and content – the conventional ways of doing things were not made for everybody, so it’s worth experimenting with new ones.

He won the IdeasFund Innovators Award for his efforts to make theatre a more inclusive space. He has directed his own work at Bristol Old Vic, The Yard, Camden People’s Theatre, Pleasance Islington, Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, and a lot of pubs. Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You) selected his one-act play to direct himself for a charity gala at the Royal Court. The Independent said his writing ‘thrives on well-observed dialogue’ and The Scotsman said it has ‘a raw ambition and energy that makes it feel unlike anything else you are likely to see at the Free Fringe, or beyond’. He’s been supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and the Ronald Duncan Prize, and his plays have been Number One Pick of the Fringe in “What’s On Stage” and “FringeReview.”

As a winner of their Beyond Award, he was commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella to adapt his tragicomic monologue play the great dog, Pan (originally written on attachment at Bristol Old Vic) into an experimental film, which was one of twenty selected for Bow Arts’ international moving image biennial.

Learn More

After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place May 1 – June 9, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.