Beloved Director Breaks Silence On Health Struggles - 27 East

Arts & Living

Arts & Living / 1663723

Beloved Director Breaks Silence On Health Struggles

icon 5 Photos
Michael Disher at work directing a show at the Southampton Cultural Center.

Michael Disher at work directing a show at the Southampton Cultural Center. DANE DUPUIS

Michael Disher at work in 2015 directing

Michael Disher at work in 2015 directing "A Chorus Line" at the Southampton Cultural Center. DANE DUPUIS

Michael Disher at work in 2015 directing

Michael Disher at work in 2015 directing "A Chorus Line" at the Southampton Cultural Center. DANE DUPUIS

Michael Disher

Michael Disher DANE DUPUIS

Michael Diusher surrounded by staff on the day of his release from the rehabilitation center.

Michael Diusher surrounded by staff on the day of his release from the rehabilitation center.

authorMichelle Trauring on Dec 27, 2019

On its surface, December 2 did not strike Michael Disher as cause for celebration. It was an ordinary enough day, he said, with physical therapy in the morning and “putting out fires and dealing with damage control” in the afternoon.

Breaking through his deadpan, he burst into laughter — a flurry of high-pitched hoots dancing with his charming Southern drawl — a familiar sound to countless actors, dancers and audiences members involved in the hundreds of productions Disher has directed across the East End, most notably at the Southampton Cultural Center.

There, he had established himself as a tireless leader and mentor, his no-nonsense, oftentimes tough exterior giving way to a warm and loving interior. His sense of time would revolve around rehearsals, opening dates and final curtain calls, which is perhaps why this particular day was momentarily lost on him.

In actuality, December 2 marked the one-month anniversary of his discharge from Grimes Center at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, where he had spent the three months prior rehabilitating from a partial paralysis following cancer and subsequent brain surgery gone awry.

Now at home with his partner, David Mrozowski, in Connecticut, the last 31 days have represented a shift toward a new normal, explained Disher, seated in his wheelchair. And with the exception of a few social media updates, he has kept largely quiet about it — a conscious exercise in self-preservation, he said, that has reached its end.

“I’m hesitant, I have to say,” he said of sharing his story. “It’s a private issue, I’m a private person, I don’t like an awful lot of information out there. Fortunately and unfortunately, I did have to put some of it out on Facebook, just so people weren’t burying me. And I mean that seriously. There were rumors that I was dying, that I was dead, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, and I was like, ‘Well, okay, you better get out there and resurrect yourself, Lazarus.’”

It was three days after the final performance of his March 2018 production, “Beauty and the Beast,” at Southampton Cultural Center that Disher first met with a neurologist about the loss of sensation in his left arm. The director had assumed it was a pinched ulnar nerve, and would ultimately correct itself.

He never imagined it would be a malignant tumor the size of a baseball, removed from the right parietal side of his brain during a craniotomy less than a week later.

“Their diagnosis on me was that I had stage 4 lung cancer, and that the tumor was a metastasis from it — meaning the genesis was, of course, the lung cancer,” Disher said. “But it was a very small nodule in the lung and nobody could actually define it as a tumor. It was so mysterious.”

The cancer would require three radiation sessions followed by chemotherapy. “It’s hard, it’s vicious, it’s ugly, and I would not wish it upon a snake,” said Disher, who was all the while directing “Meet Me in St. Louis” at the Southampton Cultural Center at this time last year, and “Love Letters” shortly thereafter.

“I just kind of said, ‘What’s gonna kill me quicker? Is it going to be cancer, or is it going to be not working?’ So I gave it a shot,” he said. “I do know doing theater and being in the theater is my core, it’s my essence. I was born, raised and thrived in exactly what I knew I was supposed to do, which was to do theater and teach. And I was so very, very lucky to have so many opportunities to do those two things, for 37 years out here, without interruption.”

But within days of “Mamma Mia!” closing this past March, a new diagnosis ground Disher to a halt. His standard MRI detected debris around the radiation site, called necrosis, and it needed to be removed.

Four months had passed without scheduling a surgery date when Disher fell to his knees in his bathroom on July 18. In less than 24 hours, he was admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital, and six days later, he went back under the knife.

“The procedure seemed very simple,” Disher said. “They said there was an 80 to 90 percent near-complete recovery, that I might need eight or nine days in physical therapy, but other than that, I’d be bouncing right back.”

When he awoke from the surgery, he could not move his left leg or arm.

“I don’t know how I felt,” he said, grief crashing over him with the memory. “Hurt. Betrayal. Incompetence. And just, what do I do now? What do I do? It’s kind of hard to dance with one leg.”

His sense of humor intact, Disher would move on August 6 to the Grimes Center, where he began his three-month-long physical and occupational therapy program that forced him to “re-learn everything,” he said.

“Basically, what happened to me, I was a toddler again,” he said. “And I’m telling you…”

He trailed off, moved to tears. “I’m telling you, those people saved my life.”

What came next would be the most physically and emotionally challenging endeavor of his life, Disher said, starting with seven weeks of confinement to a 62-inch-by-40-inch bed before his first physical therapy session.

There, they told him to grasp a bar with one hand, the other hanging uselessly at his side, and pull himself up.

“I can’t do this. I can’t do it,” he recalled telling his therapists.

“You’re going to raise yourself up,” they said. “You’re going to stand up.”

And he did.

“I just cried,” he said. “I just cried and I thought, ‘I haven’t even stood up in two months.’ That was wonderful. I mean, I cried and I cry now telling the story, but I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s hope. There is hope.’”

On his release day, his family of therapists gathered around him in solidarity, snapping a quick picture together before saying goodbye and wishing Disher well as he walked “rather unsteadily” into his next chapter, he said.

“About the only visitors I’ve had since then have been therapists because that’s the way I wanted it,” he said. “A couple people came over from Long Island, which was really nice, and between the support system that I had on Long Island and David over here in Connecticut, I don’t know how people could go through anything like this without such care and without such love.”

It was only a matter of weeks before Disher received his first unexpected visitor, though, in the form of a medical bill. And they only kept coming. “I started getting bills out of the blue, and I was like, ‘What is this?’” he said. “It was absolutely shocking. Here I was thinking I was very nicely covered, and I wasn’t.”

According to a study published in the American Journal of Medicine last year, 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their entire life savings in two years due to treatment — on average, $92,098. After tracking 9.5 million cancer patients from 2000 to 2012, the study also reported that 62 percent of all cancer patients are in debt, and 55 percent of them owe at least $10,000.

To help defray some of Disher’s medical expenses, his friend Robert Strafford started a fundraiser that, with the help of 125 other people, has raised over $14,000.

“When I first saw it, my immediate reaction was I wanted to take it down,” Disher said. “Robert explained to me, very kindly and very nicely, ‘Michael, you have given to these actors, to this community, for years and years and years, and never taken a thing. Let someone help you.’ There’s pride. There’s embarrassment. I guess I was raised in that generation where you would die before you would ask for help — and given the trajectory of this little nightmare, that could have well been the case.

“Quite honestly, I don’t know what I would do right now if that money wasn’t coming in, because I’ve got bills staring me clearly in the face,” he continued. “I have never had debt in my life, just never, and I don’t know what’s coming down the pike later. This will be ongoing for the rest of my life, one I will never take for granted again.”

As for Disher’s prognosis, his neurosurgeon cannot tell him when he will regain full use of his leg and arm, if ever. That reality is felt in ordinary tasks — “I couldn’t button a shirt if I had to,” he said — but he chooses to focus on the light that has come out of this darkness, he said, and his eventual return to the theater.

“Slowly but surely, it’s getting a little better. It’s not where I want it, and I’m furious over the surgery, and I have to get past that,” he said. “But I am bound and determined to get back to where I was. Am I going to recover 100 percent? That remains to be seen. But am I going to work toward that 100 percent? Yes, I am. How quickly this happens is out of my control.”

He sighed. “But there’s still a lot of sunsets I want to see,” he said. “There’s a lot of activity from the geese and the swans on the pond that I want to see. I still want to see sunrises. I just want to wake up. I want to wake up every day and go, ‘Wow, okay, miracle or not, let’s do what need be done.’”

You May Also Like:

Springs Artist Fitzhugh Karol Debuts Outdoor Sculpture Show at Duck Creek

The Arts Center at Duck Creek will present “Fitzhugh Karol: On the Grounds,” a site-specific ... 8 Jul 2025 by Staff Writer

La Goulue Sur Mer Arrives in Southampton, With a Dash of Chaos and a Side of Style

“Is it true?” said the anxious DM on my Instagram account. “Is La Goulue really ... by Steven Stolman

Art on a Line: Guild Hall’s Clothesline Sale Hangs Tough for 2025

Guild Hall’s beloved Clothesline Art Sale returns on Saturday, July 19, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The annual event, a Hamptons tradition since 1946, transforms the museum’s lawn into a sea of original artwork — hung on clotheslines — and offers visitors the chance to purchase local art at accessible prices. Jackson Pollock once sold a painting at the sale for $250, and past participants have included Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, Elaine and Willem de Kooning and other art-world icons. The event continues to offer a rare opportunity for the public to view and purchase work by East End ... by Staff Writer

The Climate-Friendly Fitness Routine

“Live simply so that others might simply live” — Mahatma Gandhi The first time I ... by Jenny Noble

Joy Behar Gets the Last Laugh in ‘My First Ex-Husband' at Bay Street Theater, July 14-19

Emmy Award-winning comedian and co-host of “The View,” Joy Behar stars in “My First Ex-Husband,” a bold, funny and heartfelt new play based on true stories from her life. The limited engagement runs July 14 through 19, at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. With razor-sharp wit and no filters, “My First Ex-Husband” explores the messy, hilarious truths of love, sex and relationships. Adapted from Behar’s personal experiences, the show is both deeply personal and widely relatable. Behar will appear on stage on July 14, 18 and 19. Also appearing nightly, July 14 through 19, are Veanne Cox, a Tony-nominated ... by Staff Writer

Experience the Rhythms of Brazil With Nilson Matta’s Voyage Quartet

Grammy-nominated bassist Nilson Matta will lead his Brazilian Voyage Quartet at The Church on Friday, July 25, at 6 p.m. The concert is part of Hamptons JazzFest. The group features acclaimed guitarist Chico Pinheiro and offers a rich exploration of samba, bossa nova and modern Brazilian jazz. Matta, a founding member of the renowned Trio da Paz and longtime collaborator with Yo-Yo Ma on the Grammy-winning “Obrigado Brazil” project, is known for blending traditional Brazilian rhythms with contemporary jazz. His lyrical bass playing and deep rhythmic connection have earned him international acclaim. Guitarist Chico Pinheiro, recognized as a leading voice ... by Staff Writer

At the Galleries for July 10, 2025

Montauk The Depot Art Gallery, at the Montauk railroad station at the corner of Flamingo ... by Staff Writer

Round and About for July 10, 2025

Fireworks Shelter Island Fireworks The Shelter Island fireworks will be held on Saturday, July 12, ... by Staff Writer

Curtis Institute of Music Alumni and Faculty To Perform in East Hampton on July 22

Talented alumni and faculty from the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music will tour the East Coast this summer, with a concert scheduled for Tuesday, July 22, at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton. The event is presented by Music for Montauk. The program features beloved melodies ranging from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” to works by Brahms and de Falla. Performers include mezzo-soprano Katie Trigg, violinist Elissa Lee Koljonen, pianist Hanchien Lee, and Curtis Institute President and violist Roberto Díaz. The concert program includes: Manuel de Falla’s “Suite Populaire Espagnole,” performed by Díaz (viola) and Lee (piano); ... by Staff Writer

'Bonnie & Clyde' Cast and Crew Announced for Bay Street Musical

Bay Street Theater has unveiled the complete cast and creative teams for its pulse-pounding musical ... 7 Jul 2025 by Staff Writer