Tonight: Zack Weinstein '09 guest stars on 'Glee'

Alumnus Zack Weinstein '09 will guest-star tonight in Glee, the multi-award winning comedy/drama series that airs weekly on the Fox network. How he got there is quite a story, particularly given the setback that he faced in the summer following his first year at Skidmore.

Since returning from hiatus in mid-April, Glee has generated considerable excitement. The program's focus is a young high school teacher who returns to his alma mater to teach and advise the school's Glee Club. The club's membership includes the school's outcasts, but as the group gains confidence and wins notice for its performances, more popular members of the student body join. Glee Club, on this show, is over the top. The group participates in a number of show choir competitions that involve elaborately staged and choreographed production numbers featuring contemporary music. ( Glee cover songs are released on iTunes following that week's broadcast and have sold remarkably well.)

Matthew Morrison, a Broadway veteran, plays the teacher/club advisor. His nemesis is the advisor to the cheerleaders, played by Jane Lynch. Glee Club members span the range of high-school archetypes, whose love of music and dance helps them to cope.

Weinstein's personal story is as dramatic as any TV script. He enrolled at Skidmore in 2004 to study theater and successfully completed his first year. During the summer that followed, tragedy struck.

He worked as a counselor at summer camp in Maine. On a day off, the camp's counselors visited a nearby river to canoe and swim. Weinstein and a friend were horsing around in the water when the friend flipped Weinstein over his head and Weinstein hit the river bottom. He broke his neck, shattering the C4 through C6 vertebrae. As he wrote in the "Daily Dose"  blog on the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation web site, "I got wildly thrown off my path and my life took a sharp turn for the worse."

When he returned to Skidmore after a year off, he was in a wheelchair. On the blog post Weinstein wrote, "When I returned, some of my professors suggested that I could be a very good director. It sounded like a nice enough idea, but I wouldn't go for it. I could still talk, I could still think, and I could still feel. Well, I could still feel emotions at least. I was going to stick with the acting thing."

It was a "relatively smooth" process to re-acclimate to Skidmore, "given that I was now a quadriplegic with serious physical limitations," said Weinstein. "The school and all my friends were incredibly supportive," he said. "None of my friends minded lifting me up to get me places and Skidmore was unbelievably supportive in making modifications that allowed me to get around campus." His schedule never really slowed?he continued with his theater studies and performances and maintained his membership in the Dynamics, one of the College's a cappella singing groups.

After graduating in 2009, Weinstein and his wife, Anna-Maija, whom he married in 2007, headed west. Theylive in Studio City, Los Angeles, in an apartment directly across the street from entrance to Universal Studios. He takes acting classes and has been cast several times, including in a student project posted on funnyordie.com and in a buy.com holiday season commercial that aired in late 2009.

The buy.com gig enabled him to align with an agency. The firm alerted him to the audition for the Glee role , which was written specifically for a person with a spinal cord injury who uses a wheelchair. The audition was scheduled for a Monday; Weinstein received the script on the prior Friday. He spent the entire weekend reviewing the script and preparing, including consulting with his acting teacher. Then he auditioned. "An agonizing week and a half later," he said, "I booked it."

In the episode, Weinstein's story line intersects with two of Glee's lead characters, and Weinstein sings. He can't share details about the plot line or the song. But he could share his thoughts on the program.

Read Weinstein's story of the filming as reported May 10 inThe Wrap.

"I'm a fan of the show?I really like it. The music is phenomenal and the story line is great," he said. On the Reeve Foundation blog, Weinstein discussed his Glee-ful experience and contributed to the ongoing discussion in the blogosphere critical of the show and a key character. Kevin McHale, who is not disabled, plays Artie, the wheelchair-using member of the Glee ensemble. Some have questioned the producers' decision to cast a person who acts disabled, instead of casting an actor who is disabled.

Hear NPR's Morning Edition story on actors with disabilities, including an interview with Weinstein. The report first aired May 11, 2010.

Says Weinstein, "Some say that if Kevin McHale was best for the part, then it shouldn't matter whether he's able to walk in real life. That's the side I fall on?.As long as actors with disabilities are given the opportunity to audition and are as seriously considered as able-bodied actors, I have no problem. The best actor should get the role."

Weinstein believes that his Skidmore education thoroughly prepared him for the acting profession. "In terms of knowing how to work on a script, I don't think I would have had the tools and skills that I have as an actor if I hadn't received such good training. My ability to be prepared, to get the audition and do well enough to get the part, was the result of all that I had learned.

"Skidmore taught me the process," he continued. "The long hours of rehearsing allowed me to maintain focus, and to sustain and stay true to the moment."

Theater Professor Carolyn Anderson, who taught Weinstein and directed him in Tina Howe's Museum while he was a student, remembered Weinstein as "clearly talented and someone who understands what a 'theater moment' is." Added Anderson, "He had a tremendous intellectual curiosity about theater that I think helped to sustain him during his recovery.

Said Anderson, "He has tremendous courage and drive. What he did physically and to sustain his academic work was remarkable. I am not at all surprised at his success. The department was absolutely thrilled to learn of his appearance."

Weinstein also is featured in today's (May 11) online edition of the Albany Times Union. Click here to read.