Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

From the Hult Center website:

Soaring in the Soreng

Location: Soreng Theater

Presented by Bridgeway House

At the Hult Center, hopes and dreams take flight as children and young adults affected by autism perform in this original showcase of many talents. Crafted by the performers, Soaring in the Soreng offers a limitless horizon of perspectives on having wings and taking flight.
Each uniquely talented performer showcases an ability to rise above the personal and societal obstacles with which they are presented each day. Bridgeway House offers each performer support in finding their own way of soaring as they demonstrate that 'the sky's the limit!'

Sat, April 25, 2009 - 1:00pm

Lovely lady will participate in this Bridgeway House Theater event. Read about her previous performances here: Theater

Down the rabbit hole

Wonderland was Wonderful.

Anything can happen, and often does, we were reminded before the performance. As I sat there in the audience, I knew that the last dress rehearsal, less than a week ago, was reportedly the very first rehearsal in which no one had a meltdown. The unique nature of the cast of this play means that we will have to be comfortable rolling with the flow.

The play went off without a hitch. The actors remembered most of their lines, the costumes were wonderfully creative, the story was charming. Lovely lady was glowing afterward. I was...am...so proud of her. Proud of all of the actors, and of their teachers-facilitators-directors-helpers. The production was a challenging one, expectations were set pretty high, and they outshone themselves once again.

Not only did the troupe perform beautifully, they performed beautifully the very first time they'd performed the play in front of an audience, the first time ever on a stage for some. Imagine for a moment that you are a young person with a disability that can make crowds seem overwhelming, or sounds seem too loud, or lights too bright. New situations or people can be frightening. Imagine trying to perform in front of a crowd of people, rustling and whispering and shifting and coughing and even crying. Or imagine just trying to sit in a crowd in a strange place in the dark. Many of the audience members were on the autism spectrum too. One child in the audience had a crying meltdown. Another young person wanted to go home, wanted to leave now.

Here's where the cast really shone: They kept right on going. Not a hiccup. Like actors. Not "actors with autism". Actors on stage, rising to the challenge of performing in front of a live audience.

It's important to involve our children with disabilities in projects that allow them to shine and to stretch and to achieve. Well, all of our children, really, no matter what their abilities. Not just for their sakes, but for our own. Projects like this one serve as a reminder: When we set the bar high for our children, no matter what their needs, and we provide them with the support they need to achieve their goals, they can be successful. That's what being a parent, or a teacher, or a facilitator, or a friend is all about.

The highlight for me: Seeing my lovely White Rabbit's face as she came out of the theater.

She tried theater camp two years ago. She'd performed in her school play and wanted to try more. The camp was too much for her. The instructors were very kind, but their focus was teaching children performance, and the activity and noise and pace were overwhelming for lovely lady. She had a hard time learning the dance moves. She didn't understand the directions for some of the acting exercises. She didn't get the part she wanted. And the final blow, she hated the t-shirt she had to wear for the final performance-- she felt self-conscious and it showed.

When we found out last year that Bridgeway House was starting a theater group, she jumped at the chance. (You can read about last year's performance here.) And she loved every minute.

So, Wonderland went off without a hitch, and it was lovely. The cherry on top of the cake was the cast party afterward. Children with autism have difficulties with social behaviors, it's a part of the disability. Making friends and keeping them can be a challenge. Rehearsing weekly, working toward a goal, stretching limits and boundaries together--that's a great way to form friendships and make meaningful connections with other people. It was delightful watching the children play and talk and giggle together.

Getting the opportunity to participate in a production that allows lovely lady to blossom at her own pace, gives her a chance to shine and to feel successful.....priceless. Forming friendships and connecting.....perfect.

Life is good.
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Lovely lady's bio from the program:
Hannah is quiet and shy but energetic. She loves singing and dancing and acting. It is her dream to be famous.

"We need to show what our children can do."

Watch the video.

I can't wait until Saturday.

Wonderland

Bridgeway House theater production: Wonderland

Bridgeway House provides a variety of programs and services for children with autism and their families. The cast of the play is made up entirely of children with autism and related disabilities. Last year they put on a performance based on Jan Brett’s The Mitten. This year they’ve taken on an even more ambitious project, a longer production based on Alice in Wonderland.

Let's fill the theater! $5.00 at the door

Incredible cast of a dozen actors
(Lovely lady, 12, is playing the part of the White Rabbit. It looks like a lot of fun!)

The performance of Wonderland will be presented at the Richard Wildish Theater (630 Main Street, Springfield, OR) on Saturday, April 12th at 1:00 p.m.

Sponsored by Wildish Sand and Gravel
http://www.wildish.com

For more information, call Bridgeway House at 541-345-0805.

Curtain Call

"Am I Famous, Mom?"

The newspaper article on Sunday's Bridgeway House production of The Mitten (read my glowing post about the play here first if you haven't yet) was in today's newspaper, the feature article on the front page of the Arts section. I was delighted when I saw that the article was out. I showed lovely lady that her play was in the paper, a nice long article. I sat down to read it right away.

And....hmm.

When I'd finished reading, I felt let down. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I didn't feel inspired any more. The article was very long and detailed, well-written, had good photos of the children, and ended nicely. But still....

It wasn't until later this afternoon I realized why. After dropping off lovely lady at her girls group, I chatted with the mothers of lovely lady's two friends who'd also been in the play, and found that they'd felt the same way-- somehow disappointed but unable to really express why. Driving home, it dawned on me that we hadn't seen our daughters, our lovely, joyful, beautiful daughters in the article. The reporter, a very nice and gentle man, kind and well-meaning, had walked in expecting to see disabled kids, and that's what he saw. So that's what he wrote. Our children disappeared behind their labels and behaviors. We got to read about the difficulties and the behaviors and the tears instead of how the kids persevered and practiced anyway. Was the play a challenge? You bet. Darn tootin' it was, just ask the exhausted director and the parents who had to help their kids hold it together during and after play practice. My lovely lady had an utter sobbing meltdown over changing her clothes after the last dress rehearsal.

Because the play went well, Mr. Keefer wrote that they "played above their game." But they didn't. They really didn't. This was no miracle. The cast of The Mitten responded to the audience, to the fact that it was the real thing, to the energy in the theater...just like the cast of any play anywhere. It was their moment to shine, and they knew it, so they shone. Because they are children first and foremost. Great kids. Funny kids. Charming kids. Who happen to have autism.

I did like this part, near the very end (the lecture happened during the run-through, not during the actual performance):

The show was sweet and funny. But was it art? This was, after all, nothing but a half-hour grade school performance. People like to gush about "risky" art, even when the risks are utterly conventional. This was a true theater of risk. No one involved had a clue what would happen on Sunday afternoon, from the kids and their parents to the director. "The Mitten," in that sense, was a grand piece of conceptual artistry, raising questions of identity and difference without a moment of preachiness. When Annie stormed off stage to lecture that hapless mom, she broke the fourth wall of theater more honestly than any postmodernist playwright ever has. We are all part of the show, the moment said, no matter how much we might prefer to sit back and watch.

~Bob Keefer, “Opening Act”, The Register Guard, February 22, 2007.

I liked the online slide show better. It's got lots of smiles and fun pictures. There's an absolutely stunning picture of my lovely bunny near the end, holding her roses. I'll try to link it here, but it may not work. We'll see.

The Mitten

A child with autism in the family. When people learn that we have a child with a disability, they typically think of challenges and hardships. And those certainly exist. Difficult behaviors, obsessive and repetitive conversations and play, difficulty with abstract concepts and reasoning are all part of our daily life with our autistic lovely lady. When one hears of a child with a disability like autism, triumph and inspiration aren't exactly the first things that spring to mind.

Today, through Bridgeway House, a local agency serving children with autism, lovely lady and several other children on the autism spectrum put on a play loosely based on the picture book The Mitten, Jan Brett's adaptation of a Ukranian folktale. The production was a rousing success. A local company filled a grant allowing Bridgeway House to get rehearsal and performance time in beautiful new community theater, The Wildish Theater in downtown Springfield. Each child got to choose his own character, so the story expanded to include two fairies, a tornado and a train, in addition to the usual forest creatures. The children had been rehearsing since December, the costumes were fun, the theater was packed, the story came off perfectly, and the actors (and actresses!) received roses and rousing applause at the end.

I'd watched most of the rehearsals and was expecting to sit back and enjoy the show with a smile on my face. I didn't expect that for most of the show, I'd be be near tears. The production has been followed from start to finish by a reporter from the local paper. I'd arrived early today to help with set-up, and was sitting in the front row trying to fix lovely lady's fluffy white tail (a feather boa) onto her white pants. He sat next to me and asked if he could do an informal interview. "Sure," I said. We chatted about lovely lady, the play, the rehearsal where she fell down the steps. Then he asked me the questions that had me near tears, the good (but embarrassing) kind of tears: "Tell me about how she's changed over the years," and "What do you see in her future?"

This is the second time in the last two weeks I've been asked a question that really made me consider lovely lady's past and present-- the first was in a videotaped research interview for an autism treatment study, and the interviewer asked "What would you like to go back and say to all of the people who knew your daughter when she was first diagnosed?" To my credit, today I didn't break down crying like I did on the video. I managed a watery-eyed answer. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what I said, even, because I was trying not to cry. And as I sat waiting for the play to start, I couldn't stop thinking about how lovely lady has exceeded my fears, my expectations....maybe not my dreams, but when she was four and spinning in circles repeatedly reciting dialogue from Disney's 101 Dalmatians, I certainly didn't expect that I'd eventually see her hopping around on a real stage in a real theater in white bunny ears arguing over a giant mitten.

"Tell me about how she's changed over the years." She's gone from a child caught in her own world to a young lady, quirky and lovely, gladly living in ours.

"What would you like to go back and say to all of the people who knew your daughter when she was first diagnosed?" Look at her now. I wish I could take her to all of those people who said she'd need visual schedules and extra supports all her life, and say "Look what she can do!" I wish I could take her to all of the people who told me, "Look at all the time she's spending in therapy. She needs time to be a little girl too." I'd say "Look at my daughter now. Because we spent so much time teaching her and pulling her into her life, she's able to be a lovely young girl."

"What do you see in her future?" For the first time ever, I can honestly say, "I don't know." I have no idea because her life has opened up. She wants to be a teacher, an artist, a mom. She may always need minimal supports, but it's likely she'll be able to work and to live by herself and to live her own life. She's going to be able to participate in her life and pursue her dreams.

So it's not the play itself that turned me into such a weepy sap. All parents sitting in the audience of their child's play are proud and excited, and rightly so. And, well, you all know I'm kind of a weepy sap anyway, so I'd probably have been a little teary no matter what. But all of those challenges lovely lady has encountered make her victories doubly sweet. A hundredfold sweet. I watch my other children and marvel at how they seem to sail through life's challenges, learning and growing seemingly without effort. And I celebrate this autistic lovely lady's victories with tears because they have been so hard won, because she and I have worked hard and battled to get to where she is now, and because my worst fears have not come to pass. She can carry on a conversation. She has friends, real friends, of all different abilities. She can pursue her dreams.

Along with the challenges and worries and hardships come blessings. Not silver lining blessings. Real, genuine, life-is-sweet blessings. Life is good. Really, really good.