Leslye Susan Orr Mistry was a remarkable performer, writer, teacher and disability advocate. Orr died earlier this spring. She was 69 years old and lived in St. Paul.

Blind from birth, Orr was the fourth of eight children in the boisterous and resilient Orr family. She was blind from birth, and learned to walk by following her mother’s finger snaps. After 18 eye surgeries, she gained low tunnel vision in her right eye. She proudly referred to herself as a cyclops, and saw her disability as a gift that fostered her big imagination.

Performing was a lifelong love, from childhood to Sioux Falls Lincoln High School to the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis. She then studied voice and speech in New York City at the Working Theater, before returning to Minnesota, where she happily spent her last 50 years.

She was a pillar in the Twin Cities arts community. For more than a decade, she was a voice coach and actor at CTC. She performed with Ballet of the Dolls, Illusion Theater, Jungle Theater, and Dudley Riggs, and was awarded playwriting fellowships by the Jerome Foundation and Minnesota State Arts Board. In 1992, she met Indian-born fellow theater artist Zaraawar Mistry. For 32 years, they were partners in love and art. From 2006 to 2023, they ran Dreamland Arts, a 40-seat black box theater attached to their St. Paul home. She passionately promoted the “possibilities of disabilities.”

Her picture book, The People on the Corner, taught children how to be inclusive in fun and games.

Her one-woman play, Hand in Hand, explored the bond between Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. She toured Hand in Hand in all 50 states, and internationally with the U.S. State Department. She is survived by her husband and son Sam; her mother, three siblings and many other relatives. In lieu of a funeral, she requested that friends and family throw parties. Memorials are preferred to Springboard for the Arts, where a new fund to support artists with disabilities is being established in her name.