Realwheels Theatre explores accessibility in Disability Tour Bus
New radio-play podcast draws from people’s real-life experiences for its love-story script
Disability Tour Bus. Photo by Rashi Sethi
Realwheels Theatre presents Disability Tour Bus, available for streaming online as of July 24
ONE OF THE reasons Adam Grant Warren moved to Vancouver from Newfoundland in 2008 was to attend film school, but that was just part of it. A wheelchair user, the co-artistic director of Realwheels Theatre also left the eastern city of Mount Pearl because Vancouver had a reputation as being “Canada’s most accessible city”. In fact, as Warren can attest first-hand, Vancouver has a long way to go when it comes to meeting the needs of those with disabilities.
“Newfoundland is not a forgiving or accommodating geographical situation for folks in wheelchairs, so I came out here with this rose-coloured perspective within my first few months in the city,” Warren says in a phone interview with Stir. “But things break, things don’t work as they should, and things have not been considered; I am frequently late, and I am frequently behind. Vancouver is more accessible than many other places but it still has a lot of work to do.”
Experiences like Warren’s of navigating the urban landscape—all drawn from members of the disabled community—form the basis of Disability Tour Bus, a new radio-play podcast having its world premiere on July 24. Written by Amy Amantea and Rena Cohen and directed by Cohen, the production follows Shiloh (Cadence Rush Quibell), a young wheelchair-user, as they navigate their first day as a guide for “Funcouver Bus Tours”, coming across so many inaccessible points along the way. They work alongside a longtime employee named Hugh (Lenard Stanga) who loves telling dad jokes. One of the characters is blind and has their own issues with getting around. In the play as in real life, challenges related to accessibility abound.
“I came out here knowing that I could have a level of autonomy and independence that I wanted in Newfoundland,” Warren says. “It’s very much a car community. Transit in Newfoundland exists, but it’s not good and it’s not accessible for wheelchairs. It’s news in Newfoundland that we have a handful of accessible cabs. But it’s really interesting for me when I travel, even just to commute, with someone who is a powerchair user—there are things that I am able to access as a manual wheelchair user that a powerchair user can’t get to.
“I’ll invite a friend out for coffee who is a powerchair user,” he continues, “and will think ‘I can get through this door, but you can’t get through this door’ because of different widths. Powerchairs are generally wider, so I can fit through a standard-width door but a lot of my friends can’t. It’s really important to note that people don’t necessarily think of a universal pathway for a universal wheelchair because there is no universal wheelchair user.”
The fare gates at BC Transit stations pose another problem; many of Warren’s friends can’t physically tap their card to get through; instead, they have to call for and wait for an attendant to come and help them. “No one thought to ask what those of us who are looking for actually need,” Warren says. “No one thought of someone who is physically unable to tap.”
While issues of accessibility form the backbone of Disability Tour Bus, there’s more to it than that.
“There is also a very human love story that’s part of it,” Warren says. “There’s a reason why the people who are the protagonists need to get where they’re going. It’s not just that people who are wheelchair users have to get places; it’s a very specific, very relatable human love story. It’s very sweet.” 
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