Actor/Teaching Artist/Disability Equity Consultant to the Entertainment Industry

New York, NY

Christine Bruno is an actor, teaching artist, and disability equity consultant for the entertainment industry. She is based in New York City and has been a working actor for more than 20 years and an internationally recognized activist for disabled artists for more than 15. She holds an MFA in acting and directing from the New School and is a lifetime member of the famed Actors Studio. 

As an actor, Bruno has appeared in productions in New York, regionally, and internationally. Her select credits include the Off-Broadway world premieres of Bekah Brunstetter's Public Servant, Mariana Correño King’s Truckers, and Jean Genet's The Maids (adapted by Jose Rivera) and world premiere U.K. musicals Raspberry and The Ugly Girl. Select television and film credits include CBS's God Friended Me, NBC's Law & Order, Amazon Prime's ABLE: A Series, and Best Summer Ever (2020). She is a Princess Grace Award nominee and a recipient of an artist commission from the Anti- Eugenics Project and artist grants from the Center for Cultural Power, NYFA, and the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable. 

As a disability equity consultant, Bruno serves as a direct liaison between Deaf and disabled artists and decision makers, assisting the industry with everything from casting to providing resources for accessible audition spaces, from securing interpreters to providing story and script consultation to ensure accurate representation. She conducts DEIA audits for non- and for-profit arts institutions across the U.S. and facilitates conversations nationally and internationally across all forms of media. 

Bruno’s artistry and activism are inextricably linked. “I breathe, eat, and sleep disability equity in arts and entertainment every day,” she said. This passion is what led to her participation as a sitting member of the NY Local Board of SAG-AFTRA and chair of the NY SAG-AFTRA Performers with Disabilities (PWD) Committee. She also serves on the SAG-AFTRA National PWD Committee, SAG-AFTRA’s AMPTP PWD Task Force, Actors’ Equity EEOC Committees, and the advisory boards of National Disability Theatre and Queens Theatre’s TFA program. She is a founding member of the Disability Cohort of Time’s Up’s 5050by2020. In 2016, Bruno was the freelance disability consultant for the first-ever Cultural Plan for the City of New York. She served as disability advocate for the Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre-winning nonprofit Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts from 2005 until its closure in 2018. 

Bruno is mindful of how impactful her presence is in any work she does. “As an actor, my mere physical presence on stage and screen is the embodiment of activism for equity in the arts,” she said. “I nurture and celebrate the ‘additional role’ my lived experience affords me. I share this inherent activism with my colleagues from all underrepresented groups—from race and ethnicity to gender identification. I believe the more we know, the better allies we can be to one another, and the stronger and more impactful the art we make will be as a result.” Bruno owns her experience and utilizes it to create more and better opportunities for other disabled artists. To this end, she helped develop Queens Theatre’s Theatre for All professional training program for Deaf and disabled actors and has been an instructor for the program since its inception. 

Bruno is guided by the principle “nothing without us,” which means disabled people MUST have a seat at EVERY table and be included in EVERY conversation regardless of whether or not the conversation is disability-specific.  

“The lived experience of disability should be present and represented in every conversation whether or not the conversation is ‘disability-specific,’ she said. “Our trajectory in the arts should be to create a field where the inclusionary impulse becomes standard practice of all institutions, so that what we see on and behind our stages, in our offices, and in our boardrooms is an accurate and authentic reflection of what we see on our streets and in our communities. For the American theater to remain relevant, we must embrace a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment that nurtures new, vibrant voices telling authentic and compelling stories that reflect our shared humanity.”