HowlRound Theatre Commons: Theatre is a powerful force. The stories told onstage shape how an audience views their friends, children, and colleagues. It can be a great place to form an empathic connection with others and learn stories from different perspectives. However, when stories are put into the wrong hands, they can cause these perspectives to be seen as strange, leading the audiences to exclude those people in their everyday lives.
1 comment:
I really agree with the author Lummus' point specifically about how you are going to tell an autistic story if the director, who is leading the charge of creating that narrative and the conversation around that story, is not autistic. Last year, for my senior year of high school, I directed a one-act play called The Other Room that centered around the story of an autistic boy in high school. While I was not allowed to ask my fellow high school students that I was auditioning if they were autistic, I knew I was and that could be enough to create a compelling and truthful narrative about my experience. To my luck though, I ended up with a cast comprising of multiple people that had siblings that were autistic, my SM was autistic, and not only did we do a bunch of general research but we were able to bring my experience, my SM’s personal experience, and their family members experiences to the table when creating the story. It ended up being a beautiful love letter to all the autistic people that we were or knew, but I don’t think that would have been possible in the same way if I wasn’t autistic. I really would like to direct more shows about my community, but preferably by the time I do so there will be more than just Curious Incident, as there can be so many better representations of who we are than just that show.
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