Breaking Character: The work of making the theatre field more inclusive and equitable for people with disabilities is a complex and long-term project. Like any kind of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) work, it can feel simultaneously like the most important priority for sustainability of an organization and like an issue so large that it can be daunting to take the first step.
6 comments:
At some point last her I first heard about this style of show, and I still don't know what to think about it. I love that their is a push to make theater more accessible to diverse audiences, but it's sad to hear that they don't change much. Meaning that for a performance to be a better experience for someone on the spectrum, if only little has to change, it's good that those performances are avaible, shut sad that they can only feel welcomed at said shows. I wish that anyone would feel like theater is always a judgement free zone, where it is ok to have any background and diagnosis and you can still experience theatre. But I know that's ignorant. I hope to one day be apart of one of these shows and see for myself what it does for familiies and the performance. I would worry so much, like the author of this article that I don't know enough and am under qualified to work a show like this. I want to know if they bring in any autism specialist to work side by side with the managers during the show and the director to see how they communicate. I am interested to see how common or uncommon their performance environments become.
This is one of the most uplifting stories I have read on the greenpage. My sister has been working with at-risk children, autistic children and adults for years and now is a teacher in her own special needs classroom. When I saw this article, I had to send it to her. Field trips are actually a very popular thing for these types of kids to do, as a regularly scheduled outing keeps the kids’ lives in a rhythm and also allows for them to be in a different environment from their home and their classroom on a semi-regular basis. While theatre has definitely been out of her different schools scope, they did get to go to the movies once, but they had to pay to rent out a whole theatre just for their 15 kids. But if these Relaxed Performances became more of a standard across the country, classes like my sister’s could have a reliable and differing activity to do that would not only be fun for the kids, but for the teachers as well.
I think that Relaxed Performances are an amazing idea. Theatre can be a great thing for people with disabilities to see, but it can also be very stressful for them and trigger certain behaviors. Relaxed Performances are great because it is giving children and families with children with disabilities the chance to watch a show and be comfortable and they do not have to worry about their child making a scene because they cannot handle the show, since that is absolutely okay for them to do in this environment. If a child does not want to sit for the whole show they can walk around and talk and do anything they want that will make them feel better. It takes the stress off of parents because they can let their kids have a good time instead of disciplining them if they act out. I hope that in the future most Broadway shows have relaxed performances for people with disabilities so they are not left out of an amazing experience and show.
As someone who is interested in all-inclusive theater and theatrical experiences for those with disabilities, this article was very important to me. It's so exciting that this is a growing trend in theater, and I hope that these kinds of performances catch on elsewhere as well. Something that I appreciated about the article was how they mentioned that they try to change as little as possible about the performance, in order than audience members get the same quality of performance and artistic impact of the performance as an audience member at any other showing. The theater that I worked at over the summer has a similar set of performances, called sensory-friendly performances. Because it's a children's theater and all the shows were geared towards children 16 and under, it's slightly different but has a similar concept. They provide a "social story" for each show online, which is a first-person narrative of what to expect during the show describing the audience member's behavior and what to do if something upsets or frightens them. They also provide a sensory-friendly guide, who is an usher with a glow stick standing at the front of the stage, to alert the audience right before a shocking or surprising moment occurs.
As someone who has sensory problem, I cannot express how much I love the fact that this is becoming more and more popular. I've had to leave countless shows and movies due to the fact that the experience was just too painful to sit through. Because of our love of flashing lights and surprising sensory experiences, I am often left reeling and panicked in most theaters. As the article mentions, you don't have to change very much to make an inclusive performance. Just make the changes less dramatic (and, dear lord, please remove the strobe lights and sudden loud booms). It is so easy to make inclusive theater for people with sensory problems. Like Lucy, the theater I worked at this summer did several "sensory-friendly" performances. There was a very short rehearsal involved, the lighting and sound made a few easy changes, the performance was staffed almost entirely by volunteers (from both the community and the theater). It was an incredibly nice thing to do. The one improvement that I hope theaters make to these practices is to perform sensory-friendly shows on weekends as well. I understand that this is a severe loss of revenue, but many people with sensory disabilities are unable to make it to Tuesday or Wednesday shows.
I think it’s great that more theaters are participating in this initiative to provide sensory- friendly experiences of their shows in order to make their performances more accessible to a larger range of people. A few years ago my parents, my brother and I attended a sensory- friendly performance of The Lion King at the Boston Opera House as a collaboration between Broadway in Boston and Autism Speaks. My brother is autistic, and while he doesn’t personally have too big of an issue watching theatrical performance at normal volumes/lighting intensities, it was a very cathartic experience to sit in a huge house filled with people on the autism spectrum and their supportive families. It also put a lot of our struggles as a family raising an autistic person into perspective. One of the most powerful parts of seeing this sensory friendly showing for us was that it wasn’t a silent house by any means- some kids were yelling and screaming, and had to be led in and out over and over again. I can recall several instances in which my brother has been glared at/ shushed for talking/ making noise in a theater or another quiet public place. I think as aspiring theater artists it’s easy to forget how we have the power to make experiences more potent for people who may not fit into our idea of a typical audience member. I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “autism awareness” lately, because even though everyone has heard of autism and has some vague idea of what it is, when someone bumps into you in the street or is avoiding making eye contact at someone while they’re talking or is mumbling and fidgeting in a theater space, the majority of people’s first reaction is “what a jerk”, instead of “maybe that person has autism”. It’s a simple shift in mindfulness that I think could make the entire world a little more welcoming. I think these initiatives so gracefully done by the McCarter theater and others are opening people’s eyes and allowing them to show a little more compassion for everyone around them.
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