ALI A ‘VALLEY’ GIRL
Stroker primed for ABC drama role
IT’S all in the numbers for Ali Stroker: a one-woman show over two nights next month followed by “Ten Days in the
Valley” on ABC. The Tony-nominated actress (“Spring Awakening”) — best-known to TV viewers for winning a part on “Glee” (as Betty Pillsbury) after appearing on the Fox reality show “The Glee Project” — brings her stage show, “Burning Old Dresses,” to The Green Room 42 on Sept. 17 and 18.
“The idea [for the show] came from moving back to New York after living out of town for a while and needing to get rid of a lot of old stuff, emotionally as well,” says Stroker, 30, the firstever performer in a wheelchair to appear in a Broadway show (and on the Tonys).
“I just turned 30 ... and I think I’ve really portrayed a very positive person — and I am — but I’m more than that,” says Stroker, who’s been paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 2 (the result of an auto accident in her hometown of Ridgewood, NJ — she suffered a spinal cord injury from her seat belt). “I feel like I’m at a point in my life where ... I don’t feel as scared sharing parts [of myself] that maybe aren’t as sunny. [In the show] I’ll be singing some of my favorite songs — both pop and musical theater songs — telling stories and sharing different parts of my life.”
Stroker will follow that up with her recur-
ring role on “Ten Days in the Valley,” ABC’s new fall drama (premiering Oct. 1) about Jane Sadler (Kyra Sedgwick), the showrunner of a network cop drama called “Internal” whose life imitates her on-screen art when her daughter goes missing. Stroker plays Tamara, one of the “Internal” writers. (The series co-stars Malcolm Jamal-Warner, Erika Christensen, Emily Kinney and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.)
“It’s a recurring spot so I got to do a bunch of episodes,” Stroker says. “Often with TV, when you’re doing a one-time appearance, you just show up and never see [the cast] again. It’s cool to be part of this family ... and what’s exciting is that [Tamara] is not based around somebody being in a chair. That’s not her storyline. So often I feel like when people are writing disabled characters, they make that disability every part of that person’s life and it doesn’t feel authentic.
“I’m an actor who lives in a wheelchair but that’s not my reality,” she says. “Not every part of my life has to do with a disability ... it’s such a big part of my life and it’s who I am but [the auto accident] happened when I was so young that I don’t really have any reference to another kind of life.
“Yeah, it’s been a great challenge living my life in a chair, but it’s all I know,” she says. “I don’t wish for something else because this is my life — and I really love my life. I’ve been so loved and taken care of and challenged that sometimes I think, ‘What else could I want?’ ”