Duluth musician Gaelynn Lea debuts new play, continues work to make stages more accessible

It’s been seven years since Duluth musician Gaelynn Lea, on something of a whim, entered NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. A couple of her fiddle students encouraged her to enter the competition that recognizes unsigned artists. So she submitted a simple, grainy video of her performing her original tune “Someday We’ll Linger in the Sun.”

But she gave zero thought to the possibility of winning. After all, she had only begun performing solo and writing her own music a couple years earlier with the help of fellow Duluthian Alan Sparhawk of the band Low, who had encouraged her songwriting and taught her how to use a looping pedal.

So, when NPR music host Bob Boilen called her a few months later to tell her she had won, she remembers thinking, “Whoa! Life is going to change. And I have no idea how. You can't foresee the impact of something like that.”

To say her career has taken off since winning Tiny Desk would be a giant understatement. In the years since, she’s toured the country and abroad, scored a Broadway play, recently recorded a song with Michael Stipe, former lead singer of REM, signed a book deal and along the way, become a leading voice advocating for people with disabilities.

Her latest project “Invisible Fences,” is an original play she co-wrote and is performing with Minnesota storyteller Kevin Kling. It debuts Thursday at the Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis.

This latest performance continues a path she has followed since winning the Tiny Desk contest, where one opportunity has led to another, and she dives headfirst into new experiences, overcoming her trepidations in the process.

“If you're chasing your passion, you're always going to be on the edge of fear, because every new experience is going to push you to a new place,” she recalls reading during her very first tour.

That mindset has guided her ever since. It helps take the “sting away from fear,” she said. Even when she’s still learning the lines and working out the kinks for a new play that’s sold out several shows. “Ultimately, it’s ok to be afraid. That’s helped me a lot.”

Lea and Kling talked for years of doing a show together, combining her music and his stories. When they met to brainstorm ideas, Lea told Kling she and her husband had invented a mythical creature with which she associated. They called it a “largroff” — a platypus with a spontaneous genetic mutation.

It was always a joke, but Kling loved it. “I think I'd be a grasshopper, and I think I probably would be missing like an arm or two,” Lea recalls him saying.

They created a mystical fable from the joke. It’s about the two unlikely friends, on an epic quest to the big city, so the short-lived grasshopper could enjoy a well-earned retirement. Then the fable became a musical play.

It explores themes of friendship and identity. "It's not directly about disability,” said Lea. “But I think both of the characters, you would identify them that way."

Kevin Kling was born with his left arm smaller than his right arm. Then he lost the use of his right arm in a motorcycle accident about 20 years ago.

Gaelynn Lea — like the largroff — was born with a genetic disorder. Hers is called osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease. Her bones broke more than 40 times in the womb. She was never able to walk because her legs are bent.

At a rehearsal at the Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis, Lea went gliding around the stage in her electric wheelchair, wearing a pair of satin wings, trying to rescue the grasshopper.

The action is interspersed with Lea’s music, accompanied by Minneapolis musician Jeremy Ylvisaker on guitar.

“I think it feels very magical,” said Lea. “I'm curious to see how the audience receives it. Because it's such a different thing than what we set out to make."

The future of disability culture

When Lea, who’s now 39, won NPR’s second annual Tiny Desk Contest, she performed a few shows with NPR Music. Then she received other offers so she decided to go on tour. Her husband Paul got a leave of absence from his job to help her travel.

A few months later, they sold their home, bought a van and hit the road. And they basically didn't stop until the pandemic hit.

“The longest we were home between October 2016 and March 2020 was three weeks,” Lea said.

She played over 500 shows around the U.S., and abroad. She got hooked on the lifestyle, she said, the interaction with fans, the ability to focus on her craft while on the road.

But the more she toured, the more she realized how inaccessible many venues were for artists with disabilities. It wasn’t just Duluth. Many stages across the country didn't have ramps or elevators.

At an iconic New York City club called the Mercury Lounge she had to use a mop closet for a green room.

“I'm like, can you remove the mop at least because it really smells like bleach?” she remembers thinking. “It’s difficult because venues want to be seen as welcoming. Often you see these 'All are welcome' signs in the window.”

But she often didn’t feel welcome. “It’s like accessibility is this weird spot where people just can't see the barriers,” she said. “Or they choose not to.”

So, she decided enough is enough. She played on the floor if she couldn't wheel herself safely on stage. She stopped playing at venues without accessible bathrooms.

“Unfortunately, that does limit where you can play, kind of a lot. But it makes a point. And I feel like I've had a lot of good experiences since then, with venues really trying to figure out something that works,” she said.

One venue held a fundraiser before her performance, and raised enough money for a stage lift. “I have seen more willingness to work on it. And so it gives me some hope. But there's still a bunch of places where we just don't even approach because they're not accessible”

Lea co-founded a group called Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities. And she’s also broadened her message beyond accessibility. She now also promotes what she calls “disability culture.”

“Which is that you make your art from the body and mind that you were born into. So if you like my songs, then you have to care about disability, because it's part of what made those songs,” she said.

Lea says disability has long carried negative connotations. That it’s something bad, something to be pitied. She’s trying to flip that on its head, and help the world see disability as something positive, something that contributes to music, art and a more beautiful, diverse world.

“It's who you were born as, and that's not a positive or a negative. It's just who you are, it's a form of diversity. And when you think of disability as a form of diversity, you can understand why it's important to include it in our culture.”

Kevin Kling, who first met Lea while working on disability issues, said she is part of a new generation of advocates.

“We've gone through these different tiers of, you know, acceptance, tolerance — all those words that just drove me crazy — to now embracing our differences,” Kling said. “And Gaelynn really embraces her differences, and has a wonderful sense of humor about it.”

Since winning the Tiny Desk Contest, Lea has spoken to the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Health. She’s delivered two TED talks. She has talked about diversity and accessibility at forums presented by Google and Microsoft.

She hopes her advocacy helps shift the dialogue around disability to something more inclusive and positive, and prioritizes accessibility. But making music is still her passion.

In 2021, a director named Sam Gold reached out to Lea to see if she’d be interested in writing the score to a Broadway production of MacBeth. He had heard her apocalyptic version of the traditional Finnish folk tune Metsakukkia, and thought Lea would be perfect to create the dark, layered soundscape he envisioned. But Lea didn’t really believe it was a Broadway play.

“So finally, he's like, I don't know what else I can tell you. Like, this is a cool opportunity. Daniel Craig is playing Macbeth.”

But Lea hadn’t heard of Craig.

“I was like, ‘what? What's he been in?’ And he's like, ‘James Bond,’ and I was like, 'Oh, okay. Now I understand. This is a good opportunity. I should probably do this.’”

She’s currently writing the music for another play, and has started work on a memoir on her experiences as a touring artist with a disability, and her changing ideas of identity.

But first, she’s excited to premier “Invisible Fences.” Several shows have sold out, but the Open Eye Theatre has added an additional performance for Sunday evening.