MAR
22

Including Special Needs Actors in Your Program

By Kevin Stone 

Kevin Stone has been writing and directing plays for over 20 years.  He has experience as an actor and as a director of community theatre, church plays, high school productions and touring collegiate groups.  Besides teaching drama classes, Kevin is the pastor of a church and the managing editor of a ministry website.  Kevin’s play After Hours won the Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest. 

Theatre is for everyone.

As directors and producers of plays, it is our privilege to provide opportunities for everyone to create, to express, to participate, and to shine.  We should extend these opportunities to those with special needs, too.  Just because a person has autism, Asperger’s, Down’s, cerebral palsy, or another disability doesn’t mean they can’t fill a meaningful role in our theatre productions. 

How you incorporate special needs actors into your program is limited only by your own creativity.  Here are a few tips for bringing those with special needs into your production:

Match the role with the student’s ability level.  Giving a non-verbal student the lead role in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is to no one’s advantage.  We aren’t trying to set the actors up for failure; rather, we’re trying to give them the chance to succeed.  Good communication with the actor’s parents, teachers, aides, and therapists will help gauge how much to expect from the special needs actor.  At the same time, remember that individuals with special needs can often do much more than anyone, including themselves, think they can!  Find the actor’s “comfort zone” onstage, and then, with a lot of encouragement, see if you can expand that zone a little!

Take advantage of an actor’s special interests.  I recently staged a play with several special needs students.  During one planning session, I asked a girl with autism if she would like to play a butterfly (knowing of her love of butterflies).  She surprised me by stating that she would rather be a cat (her special interest had changed!), although she would be a butterfly if she couldn’t be a cat.  So I made her a cat...  and she was the best cat this stage has ever seen.  Two years ago, I worked with another special needs actor who wanted to be a dinosaur.  I found a T-rex costume, and he was a dinosaur.  I even let him write some of his own lines.  To this day, he still talks about the time he was a dinosaur onstage and how everyone loved his performance.

Don’t let physical limitations limit opportunity.  Wheelchairs can become cars, airplanes, ships, or whatever other vehicle you want.  A hearing-impaired actor can sign a performance for the audience with a speaking translator beside him.  Non-verbal actors are a natural fit for non-speaking roles.

Add parts to an existing play.  Can extras be added to a scene?  Can a role be split into two roles, and some of the lines given to a special needs actor?  Several years ago, I directed a play that featured a television reporter in one scene.  I brought a special needs student into the scene as the reporter’s cameraman; this met his dual desire of being onstage and having no lines.  Of course, changing the script in any way requires permission from the publisher.  I know Pioneer is great about this, and my guess is you won’t have too much trouble from other publishers either.

Give special needs students their own play.  Find a simple, manageable script or guide students in writing their own script, then do costuming, tickets, and all the rest.  What makes a script suitable for special needs actors?  That depends on the abilities of your students, but I would imagine you would be looking for a short script (your actors will likely take more than the estimated running time) with a single, simple set.  Your big night will be rewarding for all involved.

Look backstage.  Every production needs offstage and backstage help.  Special needs individuals can make great stage hands, technicians, ushers, house managers, publicity artists, box office workers, and more.

Have a plan to provide extra help.  Depending on their ability level, some special needs actors may feel overwhelmed having to remember lines onstage.  Be prepared as a director to provide extra help with memorization.  It may be good to have a back-up plan, too, such as a prompter or cue cards, if that will help the special needs actor feel less stressed.

Invest in your own personal growth.  Most important of all, commit to patience, compassion, and respect, because special needs actors need all three...  even more than you need a flawless production.  Be inflexible in your resolve to be flexible.  Then, through your example, teach every member of your cast and crew to make the same commitments.

Theatre has much to offer to those with special needs:  acceptance in a group, strengthened social skills, self-confidence, a sense of accomplishment, and so much more.  Yet, time after time, I hear that it is the other members of the cast and crew who feel they have gained the most.  Perhaps we should think of those with special needs more as having special gifts.  An actor with a disability has plenty to offer and share with others:  enthusiasm, hard work, perseverance, and joy.