Theatre is for everyone

I started to describe theatre for people who are blind, over 30 years ago. The concept of audio description was brand new.  There were a lot of skeptics, and people made extremely insensitive remarks.  But we persevered, and today, Audio Description is not only in theatres, but movie theaters, museums, and national parks.

I have always believed that theatre should be inclusive, not exclusive.  After seeing that a theatre in northern New Jersey paired with a local children's theatre to perform an autism-friendly show, I decided that we needed to do an autism-friendly show at McCarter.

Last night, after months of hard work, involving a wonderful group of McCarter staffers, of making sure that we had everything necessary to ensure a great performance, the Fiasco Theater Company performed "Into the Woods" for an audience of children and young adults with autism, and their families.

A social book was constructed and sent to the various autism services to hand out to patrons prior to last evening's show.  The social book has pictures and descriptions of everything that the patron with autism will encounter at the theatre, so that it would seem familiar and not alien.  We had two rehearsal rooms set aside - a Quiet room, and an Activity room.  We had 10 volunteers from Eden Autism Services who wore blue tee-shirts to identify themselves and carried "goody bags," filled with fruit snacks, popcorn, and fidgets.  Two McCarter staffers stood upfront, one on either side of the stage, holding green glow sticks.  The audience knew from the social book that when the glow sticks were raised, a loud noise was coming.

There was a quite space in the lobby with two bean bags chairs and some more fidgets, and stress balls.  The women's restroom became a family restroom.  We had signs everywhere indicating where everything was.

There was continuous seating - we had people entering the theatre 45 minutes after the show had started, and for once, theatre patrons were allowed to bring food into the theatre.

We had countless meetings with autism groups and had been told that some people might only stay for 10 minutes, but that those 10 minutes were a victory. Two families left during Act I, one about 40 minutes in and another about 1 hour in... Act I is 1 1/2 hours long.  About 25 people left at intermission, but the bulk of the audience stayed through until the end.  Not bad when you realize we started with 145.

This is a pared down version of "Into the Woods." 10 actors play multiple roles.  One of the actors attended a meeting in February with us at the Theatre Development Fund, which has successfully had 6 autism-friendly productions of Broadway musicals.  This actor had worked with children with autism and he was every excited about last night's show.

I have had so many wonderful experiences in theatre.  But I have never experienced the sheer wonder, the joy, euphoria, the high, as I did last night.  I was truly humbled.  I was at the front of the stage during intermission, talking to the two women holding the glow sticks, when the actors came onstage in preparation for Act II.  A young girl, about 12 or 13, saw the actors and ran to the stage, yelling "Jack! Jack!  Where have you been?  Hi Jack, it's me, Annie!!"  And "Jack" said hi to her and said a few words.  Then she saw Cinderella, and said, "Ooh, ooh, look at you!"  And Cinderella spoke to her also.  It was a magical moment.

It is not hard to see how difficult a life this can be for families.  Over and over again, we heard that parents of autistic children cannot go to the theater, they can't go to the movies, because their children are noisy, prone to outbursts and behavior that annoys other people.  How unbelievably humbling it is to watch the parents and their children sit in the theatre, mesmerized by the musical, and know that they did not have to worry about other people complaining.  

The actors cried as they took their bows.  So did all of us who had worked to see this wonderful day come to fruition.

We have next season's play picked out and this one will also include people with developmental disabilities.

See?  Theatre really is for everyone.