Lynn Manning: A Man of Unique Vision

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On October 25th, 1978, at the age of 23, Lynn Manning lost his sight completely as the result of a gunshot he received during a senseless bar fight.  In WEIGHTS, Manning’s autobiographical one-man show, he transports the listener into his world—passionately illustrating—through storytelling, poetry, and music—his impoverished upbringing in 1960s L.A., the fateful incident, and his recovery and eventual triumph.

Born into a large family with an abusive stepfather and an alcoholic mother, Manning was forced to confront many harsh realities at a very young age.  When his mother was deemed unfit to care for her children, Manning and his eight siblings were split up and raised within the state foster-care system. By his early twenties, Manning had managed to overcome these obstacles and was on the path to becoming a painter. As a visual artist, Manning felt that the worst fate would be to lose his sight. His fears became reality on that fateful day in October 1978 when a gunshot wound left him completely blind.

Despite the advice he received from everyone—counselors, doctors, even his own family—to adjust to his loss of sight gradually, Manning was quick to bounce back from the tragedy, choosing to view it as merely an obstacle on his pathway to success. He set out to conquer his fears and the challenges of his new blindness, and strode with confidence and determination toward his future.

Others, however, were less ready to accept his quick recovery and positive outlook. When he applied to a disability organization for assistance to return to school and become a writer, he was told that he had not yet gone through the grief process and that he should set his sights lower to avoid disappointment. Despite meeting such resistance, Manning eagerly began the process of learning to live in the world without his sight: using a cane to find his way around, interpreting and relying on a new world of sound, dealing with the reactions of strangers and, eventually, finding his own apartment and a supportive network of friends.

WEIGHTS is Lynn Manning’s story. First performed in 2000, it has since received much critical acclaim, along with three NAACP Theater Awards, including one for Best Actor.  Since then, WEIGHTS has been performed throughout the United States as well as internationally, in such locations as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Canada, England and Croatia.  Manning also has been invited to open the 4th International Blind and Visually Impaired Theater Festival with a command performance of WEIGHTS in Zagreb, Croatia. The WEIGHTS “cast album”, recorded in front of a live audience at Capitol Recording Studios in Los Angeles and produced by Bridge Multimedia and Remote Recording, has brought Manning’s story to an even broader audience.

Today, Lynn Manning has achieved a remarkable level of success. He is an award-winning playwright and an acclaimed actor, having written thirteen plays to date, which address the controversial issues of minority power struggles and living with disabilities.  Manning has also frequently served as an artist-in-residence and guest performer at such venues as the Erie Art Museum, the California Arts Council, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.  In addition, as a lecturer and workshop presenter, Manning has lead seminars on various subjects, including “Disability in the Media” and “Disability as a civil rights vs. medical issue.”

As well as writing and performing, Manning is also an internationally honored athlete. He is the former Blind Judo Champion of the World, winner of the first World Cup in Blind Judo, a paralympic silver medallist and the recipient of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s award for Blind Male Athlete of the Year. Using his remarkable judo skills to better his community, Manning currently serves as sensei of the judo program at the Braille Institute of Los Angeles, teaching the martial art to visually impaired children and adults.

Manning has also co-founded several theater companies in the Los Angeles area. Most recently, he has co-founded and is Literary Manager of the Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC), which is bringing Theater Education Arts to the underserved Los Angeles community of Watts. He is also president of the Firehouse Theater Company, which is dedicated to integrating the disabled community in all aspects of the Theatrical Performing Arts.

The Watts Village Theater Company’s productions of Manning’s plays THE LAST OUTPOST and PRIVATE BATTLE both have received much acclaim from community and critics alike, and have garnered a combined eight NAACP Theater awards nominations, including one win.  In May 2005, the company premiered Manning’s new play, UP FROM THE DOWNS, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s OTHELLO with an Afro-Latin twist which has received rave reviews from both L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles Times. 

Lynn Manning’s talent and experience are very much in demand.  In addition to being an accomplished performer in the theater, he has appeared on both the big and small screens in commercials, films and television programs, including 8 SIMPLE RULES, SEINFELD and POPULAR. He has also served behind –the –scenes, as a technical consultant for the 2004-05 ABC primetime drama BLIND JUSTICE, which chronicles a police officer who rejoins the force after being blinded in the line of duty. On set, he performed several different important functions, such as advising actor Ron Eldard—formerly of ER—on how to accurately portray a blind man, reviewing scripts for consistency and consulting on the audio description.

A lifelong resident of Los Angeles, Lynn Manning continues to reside there, with his wife, Shirley. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary anthologies and his spoken word CD CLARITY OF VISION was released on New Alliance Records in 1994. He wrote and starred in the independent film SHOOT!, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 and on HBO/Cinemax the same year. Lynn’s remarkable contributions to both the performing arts and disability communities were honored when he received the 2004 KCET-PBS Unsung Heroes Award and the 2005 American Council of the Blind’s Vernon Henley Media Award.

It seems that Lynn Manning never stops—and he wouldn’t have it any other way.