HowlRound: Katie Sweeney tells the story of her son Dustin, a theatre-lover with perfect pitch who is autistic. He has a huge vocabulary, he’s memorized whole shows, but he doesn’t engage in conversation and never answers a question that begins with “Why?” Sweeney took her son to a Broadway show, choosing box seats off to the side, away from most of the audience. Dusty sang along with the songs. Ten minutes into the second act, an usher asked mother and son to leave, because he was disturbing the actors. As they left, Dusty, upset, kept on screaming: "Stay. Stay. Stay."
2 comments:
Reading this article just reminded me of how far the theater has grown in terms of finding ways to accomodate people with disabilities and to hire actors with disabilities. The ASL version of Spring Awakening is one of the most iconic things that I have heard of in terms of accommodating those that are hearing impaired, but the theatrical business also has a long way to go because limiting the shows that people can see due to special accomodations sounds a bit like discrimination to me. I understand that not everybody can be accommodated, but it shouldn’t just be main stage theaters that are working towards being more accessible. Every person should get the opportunity to see every show at least once. In the article there was a comment from an actor that said that they were scared getting onto the stage for fear of the unexpectedness from the audience and that a kid even ran up and threw something at the actors. In a situation like that, the trained professionals that work the house should have stopped the kid, but I think it shouldn’t be scary to perform in a special performance because your job is to tell a story, doesn’t matter the audience.
I love reading about inclusive theatre experiences. Like Loh is quoted saying at the end of the article, "There is healing in the arts, for everyone." I believe this wholeheartedly. Art is healing, and everyone should have the opportunity at that experience. I understand, like Hannah, that not everyone can be accommodated, because of expenses and because of wide range of the preferences and accommodation methods, especially when it comes to hearing disabilities. The closed caption technology described in this article is something that blows my mind. Not only is the technology adaptable to real time performances, but is also super assessable on smartphones. I am also surprised that theatre employees are being rude to those with disabilities. It is unacceptable for somebody be rude to somebody else for needing or not being capable of doing something. Theatre is made for the audience, and if the audience should be respected. I also think that the spectrum-friendly performances are a really amazing way of creating inclusive theatre. It is obvious, based on the experiences of Sweeney and her son, that theatre is really important in the lives of some children who are on the spectrum, and knowing that theatres and actors are making an effort to accommodate everyone with a love of theatre makes my heart happy.
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