Paralyzed in a fall, alumna actress returns to campus stage

Twelve years ago, Justine Chichester’s life changed in an instant. The dramatic turn could have crushed her, body and soul.

Instead, the 1996 alumna is in rehearsals today for a theater production in which she stars as a woman who navigates the world in a wheelchair. The story mirrors much of what she herself has experienced after a horrific fall.

“I’ve always been a forever-positive person,” Chichester says by way of explaining what it has taken to not only survive but to thrive with a physical disability.

To understand the well from which such resilience springs requires going back in time. At FIU in the mid-1990s, the then-theater major hung out with fellow acting students as part of the so-called Brat Pack. The talented, driven undergrads starred in campus productions and eventually advanced to careers that made them the university’s most visible alumni, among them TV and film actor Danny Pino ’96 and Broadway notable Andy Señor ’97.

Chichester graduated to performing in “Grease,” “Chicago” and other musicals with a professional troupe based at the historic Gusman Theater in downtown Miami.

A dancer and cheerleader in high school, she had fallen in love with drama after a teacher asked her to participate in a one-act play.

“You’ve got a great energy, and I’d like to bring that on the stage,” Chichester recalls the woman telling her amid her own skepticism.

That first taste changed everything. She soon enrolled at FIU and landed big roles alongside seasoned students.

“So here I am with a bunch of seniors at FIU, and I’m a freshman,” she remembers of winning the part of the oldest sibling in the Russian classic “Three Sisters.”

“When we started doing it, I didn’t know anything, and it was just ‘dive right in,’” she says. “It was really an honor for me,” she adds of what became the first of multiple productions in which she acted. “That was really the start of something beautiful for me.”

Tragedy

In the midst of her flourishing career, in 2014, the unthinkable happened: Chichester slipped in the rain while out with her dog, falling violently on her back as her feet flew forward over her head. A spinal cord injury and an infection slowly stole her ability to feel anything from the chest down. Doctors told her to get used to her new life

And so, Chichester took charge of the process.

“I never thought, ‘Well, I’m going to walk again. I’m going to run again. I’ll dance again. I’m going to do all those things again.’ No, I thought, ‘How can I live my life and be strong and independent?’

“There are so many things that go along with paralysis. You don’t just lose your ability to walk. Losing my independence was the bigger thing for me.”

Admittedly fortunate to have access to resources and the unwavering support of her husband and parents, Chichester learned to drive an SUV using hand controls and can pack up her wheelchair on her own without any help getting it or herself into the vehicle.

“I lift it up, I pop off the wheels, I pick up the body of the wheelchair, and I put it in the car and I go,” she explains matter-of-factly. “The first time I went out alone, I met my best friend for drinks in the Grove, and that was so liberating.”

She also hired a physical therapist she credits with shifting her perspective. Aside from helping her build upper-body strength, he offered a powerful lesson.

“He taught me that this does not define me. He said, ‘You’re still the same person,’” Chichester explains. “And I said, ‘You know what? You’re right.’” He even convinced her to don a gown in her wheelchair to attend a black-tie event with her attorney husband, something she would never hesitate to do again.

And then, amid hopeful gains, another blow: breast cancer.

“That was the first time I said, ‘Why is this happening to me? Why am I going through all of this?’” she recalls. But knowing what she was capable of, she found the resolve to go on: “This is another chapter in my story. This is another thing that I have to talk about.”

Advocacy

Talking, and writing, about all of it has made a difference, both for herself and others. Chichester began blogging for the Disability Independence Group and posting on social media about her journey. Her message of transforming adversity into resilience resonates beyond the community of disability as able-bodied individuals have commented on the inspiration they take from her example.

Chichester has participated in the Bold Beauty Project that celebrates women with diverse disabilities and currently serves as the chair of the City of Coral Gables Disability Advisory Board, for which she will lead a workshop this month.

“This is all very challenging,” she says of her activism, “but if I don't do it, who's going to do it? Who's going to give a voice to these people who feel that they are so marginalized because of their diagnosis?”

And then there is her advocacy from the stage.

Phillip Church served on the faculty at FIU for more than four decades and directed Chichester in Shakespeare and other plays years ago. Now retired from the university, he mounts shows across South Florida through a production company dedicated to promoting “critical thinking.”

“There’s got to be a purpose,” he says of what he chooses to present.

Church approached his former student about “Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body,” a book about a paralyzed woman in an able-bodied world. He had the idea to adapt the third chapter as a play with Chichester as the lead.

This past April, she wheeled herself onstage in front of a live audience for her first performance since losing mobility. This month, she reprises her role at several South Florida venues, including the Wertheim Performing Arts Center at FIU on Oct. 23.

“This type of representation, on stage, on television and film, is so important now, because it changes the perception,” she says of her hopes for the project. “That’s going to be what brings people with disabilities into rooms where decisions are made.”

Today, Chichester has regained enough feeling in her lower limbs to cover short distances with a walker or cane. She takes every day one step at a time and remains committed to sharing a broad message of valuing others for who they are.

“We all have something,” she says. “My disability is very apparent. You see the chair. You see the walker. Someone else's might be invisible. Someone might be neurodivergent, and you don't know it necessarily. But that's why you have to see the person and not let the diagnosis, the mobility device, whatever it may be, put that barrier in between you and them.”