Acts of love: From Scranton to NYC, couple breaks through barriers onstage and off

Sep. 3—Nicholas Viselli and Ann Marie Morelli's journey through the stages of life together creates impact in and out of the spotlight.

While the married couple once dreamed of being big stars as kids growing up in Scranton, today, the New York City residents also pave the way for other dreamers who may not have otherwise had a shot.

"It's amazing to be back here (in Scranton) because when we look back at our lives, this is where it all started for us," Viselli said during a recent day inside Peoples Security Bank Theater at Lackawanna College.

Viselli is the former Nick Mazzarella, who took his mother, Rose's, maiden name as his professional name at the start of his career. Lackawanna's theater houses the former stage of Central High School, where Viselli realized his love of acting.

In the last two decades, the couple has dedicated themselves to Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB), which is NYC's only Off-Broadway company focused on celebrating and advancing the work of professional artists with disabilities. They were core company members, and, Morelli today is administrative associate/research and development while Viselli serves as artistic director. He took over this position in 2015 after friend, colleague and theater company founder Ike Schambelan died from cancer.

This past spring, TBTB presented the first NYC revival of the 2009 Tony Award-winning play, "God of Carnage," which starred David Burtka, who starred in "Gypsy" on Broadway, and "Uncoupled" on Netflix (and also is married to Neil Patrick Harris), Carey Cox from "The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu and more. The production was nominated by the Off-Broadway Alliance for best revival of a play and the Alliance also honored Viselli as one of its 2023 "Legends of Off-Broadway."

While it was an unexpected and humbling honor, Viselli feels more energized to continue the theater's mission to create good, meaningful theater with actors who just happened to have a disabilities and to normalize disabilities on stage, which hopefully will trickle into life outside of the theater.

"Our company's goal now is to try and change the world," he said.

At home on stage

Growing up in South Scranton, Viselli started out as a shy kid, even being voted "Quietest Boy" in elementary school. In high school, he sought out extracurriculars to help him out of his comfort zone, including Speech and Debate. There, he started to feel at home on stage, a feeling only magnified when he joined the drama club, appearing in shows like "Our Town" and "Godspell" at Central. He enrolled at Hofstra University after high school and studied psychology and theater, and continued to perform throughout college.

A few years later and across the city in West Scranton, Morelli's foray into acting began with local children's theater troupe the Church Mouse Players. While she didn't consider acting as a career when she was younger, she fell in love with the craft. Her children's theater days snowballed with Morelli acting in "Anything Goes" at West Scranton High School and productions around Scranton, including at Penn State Worthington. Morelli went to PSU Worthington for one year before transferring to Marywood College and continuing to perform in community theater productions.

During summers, Viselli would return home to Scranton to work, as well as participate in local theater productions. It was in 1985 when the couple were brought together during Standing Room Only's production of "Mame," and "the rest is history," Viselli said.

Theater By the Blind

By 1988, the couple had been dating long-distance when they got word late actor Richard Harris was going to be in town directing a Broadway tryout of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," and would cast local actors. The couple earned roles in the show (though Morelli didn't appear in its final version), and met and became close friends with fellow actor George Ashiotis. A few years later, Ashiotis, who is blind, invited them to see him perform in a show in NYC at TBTB, then called Theater By The Blind, a company made up of actors who were blind or low-vision. The production blew them away.

Over the next decade or so, both Viselli and Morelli continued to nab internships and scoring small roles in film and television, and even got married. By 1997, they had been living in NYC for a few years when they started to work as readers for Theater By The Blind.

When choosing its upcoming shows, a theater company orders several scripts to narrow their selections each season. For a group of actors who were blind or low-vision, the selection of scripts would need to be printed in Braille or in large print before that process could even begin. Instead, the theater would hire sighted actors to read the play so the crew and cast could decide. They got to perform in professional theater productions in NYC, and they also formed close bonds with the company members.

These relationships served as a source of strength for Morelli, as she was soon diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a chronic illness affecting the central nervous system.

"I always joke and say, I'm the only one in TBTB that became disabled while working with them," she said. "And I think that helped me a lot, too, because they accepted me as I got worse. They accepted when I needed a cane, they accepted when needed to use a wheelchair because they just got it. I was already around people who were like, 'This is what it is. It's normal, it's fine.' And that was probably one of the best things."

Breaking barriers

By 2007, she was using a wheelchair when she was cast as Hermia in the theater's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It was also around this time that members of the company, including Morelli and Viselli, felt that only working with actors who were blind and low-vision limited them. They wanted to expand to include people with all different disabilities. Schambelan had a personal connection to the cause and felt reluctant to change the theater's ethos. Then, the New York Times attended the show, giving a rave review of "Midsummer," and Morelli's performance.

"Hermia, as created by Shakespeare, is short, and her rival in love, Helena is tall," Neil Genzlinger wrote. "Through the centuries poor Hermia has always taken a verbal beating for her physique, but here it has a different bite. 'Get you gone, you dwarf, you minimus,' barks Lysander, who once doted on her. And Hermia herself laments, 'My legs can keep no pace with my desires.'"

The review also published a photo from the production of Morelli, an actor in a wheelchair, and Ashiotis, an actor who was blind. The photo was powerful and Morelli and Viselli believe Morelli was one of, if not the first, actor who used a wheelchair on an off-Broadway stage. (The first on Broadway was actress Ali Stroker in the 2019 revival of "Oklahoma!") It also earned the theater funding through a major grant. This finally convinced Schambelan to re-brand in 2008 to Theater Breaking Through Barriers, and open up the theater to all kinds of individuals with disabilities.

"There are so many incredible actors in our profession. There's so many incredibly gifted artists that either were born with a disability or became disabled at some point in their lives," he said. "That doesn't change the person and the gift, but it may change how the society perceives that person."

'More legendary'

Many times throughout the past several years, Morelli experienced instances of being treated as less than a person, like when she's been at a restaurant and the server asked Viselli what she would like to order or when someone will talk to Viselli about her as if she's not there. It was a rude awakening, she said, and that's why she and Viselli are so committed to doing the work.

Lisa Mazzarella, the proud older sister of Viselli and sister-in-law of Morelli, has watched their careers blossom from small-town kids with big dreams of stardom to making a difference in the bigger picture.

"It's something far better than eight shows a week. (They're) allowing people to shine and focusing on the ability of the person, not the disability ... You're giving them the platform to express themselves creativity and be their truest selves," she said. "And that to me is far more legendary and far more important than any role you'll play or any stage you'll appear on."

TBTB also works to normalize accessibility, such as its most recent staging of "God or Carnage," which included technical features that allowed for closed captioning to be built into the set.

"It's not drawing a ton of attention to being accessible, it just is," Morelli said. "It's kind of like it's hiding in plain sight. And if you experience something enough, it just becomes normal."

Even during the pandemic while most actors and theater pros lost work, TBTB continued creating global opportunities for others, hosting a virtual version of their annual Playmakers' Intensives in which a group of writers, directors and actors are randomly paired together to ultimately perform an original short play.

The future of TBTB holds even more innovations and creative ideas. Viselli and Morelli hope to show audiences that disabilities will not affect the quality of someone's artistry, and in turn, who they are as people.

"I could tell you until I'm blue in the face that you are a whole person, but the society we grow up in betrays that," Viselli said. "So we need to reinforce that idea that all of the beautiful, wonderful things that make you the person you are, they still exist. You are still you, regardless of anything else."

Contact the writer: gmazur@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9127; @gmazurTT on X