Who is Mallory Kay Nelson? The (wo)man, the myth, the legend. She’s been called a folk hero. And a wizard with cloth. And the best horizontal dancer this side of the Mississippi. She’s been called “Lana” in Interrogation: a SciFi web series in front of the camera. And she’s been called for help even more from behind the scenes as a costume designer.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Mallory has been disabled AF since birth. Dyslexic and poroud! She found her love for theater, Queen Elizabeth I, and Frida Kahlo as she grew up. A barter and trade deal, she also acquired more disabilities – gotta collect ‘em all! – becoming a hemipelvectomy amputee at age 14.
She holds a BA in Theater from the University of Northern Colorado, an MFA in Costume Design from Carnegie Mellon University, and a pair of forearm crutches.
She started her professional career with Denver’s PHAMALY Theatre Company, previously known as the Physical Handicapped Actors and Musical Artisans League. Her design of The Tin Man remained the front page of their marketing for over a decade and was also seen on the world stage at the Prague Quadrennial. In PHAMALY, she designed for people with more different types of disabilities most can name! She worked there for five seasons and built a chosen family only one can dream of, including dear friend, founder Gregg Vigil.
After graduate school she spent several years working in the film and television industry where she built her IMDB credits. Along with rhinestoning Rhianna’s Spanx, she worked several costume shops and stages while she went on wild adventures across the California landscape.
She has served on the board of the Society for Disability Studies and is co-author and artist for a publication on Transmobility, a word she coined to describe the added value and options afforded to some types of disabled people. She has also been interviewed for Wordgathering and written The Inclusion of the Disabled Theatre Artist.
Her work has taken her all over the US as a costume designer, artist, activist, and scholar.
She currently resides in North Carolina where she has founded CripSpace, and where she’s making visual art, trying her hand at stand-up while sitting down, and guest lecturing and consulting on disability design. If you want to see what she is working on now, come check out her CripSpace on Patreon and follow her adventure.
Mallory Kay Nelson 