Putting Young Actors on the Spectrum to Work
Theatre offers so many opportunities to rehearse for life. In January our actors did just that and we rehearsed for work at the INCLUDEnyc Fair!
Our goal was to prepare our actors so they (each in their own way) could:
feel comfortable walking around the fair
make eye contact and interact with peers and adults to share what they do in ACT Workshop
sit behind the table to greet visitors, ask them to sign our email list and hand them a business card.
We structured this like a typical acting workshop and:
introduced the activity with props or a visual
modeled the “scene” with Supporting Players and then, quickly
got the Actors up on their feet for the activity, providing prompting as needed.We did this activity as a musical walk-about* (with Broadway piano music motivating and energizing the group!)
* see out blog post Musical Walk Abouts
PART 1: Writing the Script: Their scripts were the actor's unique responses to the question:
“What do you do at Autism Community Theatre?
PART 2: Staffing the table: seated at a table, actors rehearsed greeting visitors and asking visitors to sign the clipboard and take a card.
As Ethan, age 16, told his mother:
“I enjoyed working!”
Further readings:
Leaf, Justin B et al. “COMPARING THE TEACHING INTERACTION PROCEDURE TO SOCIAL STORIES FOR PEOPLE WITH AUTISM.” Ed. Joel Ringdahl. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 45.2 (2012): 281–298. PMC. Web. 17 Feb. 2018.