 I'm facilitating this conversation and I want to give a chance for each of our panelists to introduce themselves and just do your two sentences to his life forward move. And we're going to start with Gardner and Ben and then we'll go around together. Hi, I'm Gardner Comfort. I'm an actor and writer originally from New York City. I have Tourette syndrome and I have a one man show about it called The Elephants in Every Room I Enter which I've performed in New York several times and then take on the road to the medical schools and colleges and hopefully more theaters. My name is Ben Hanna and I'm the Associate Artistic Director at Indiana Recreation here. I'm new to the company and I've been there for about nine months and I'm a director and my background is in education. Hi, I'm Clay Martin. I've been working with Trinity Red as the artistic leadership and inclusion fellow for the last year and a half and through that work I'm now the founding artistic director of the Spectrum Theatre Outsider which is a real diverse theater company made of professionals both on the obstacle spectrum and neurotypical artists. So I'm Adriana Huff. I'm the founding members of Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, the play I'm on the obstacle spectrum. Also, to write down my last name is R-I-G-E-L-H-N. So it's B-L. I got an G. You got it? Yes? R-I-G-E-L-H-N. Is that it? Can I get it right? Great. Thank you. Okay. I'll be facilitating our conversation today. Just so that everyone knows, part of my work as an access inclusion and education consultant is that I worked last year with the Indiana Recreatory Theater on their production of the Curious Incident The Dog in the Night Time. And I am also currently the access consultant in residence at the Actors Theatre of Louisville which is doing Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time this next season. So that will come up in our conversation. So it's just really for transparency's sake for you to know that I've kind of worked on both of those productions in my company as an access consultant. It's also important to know that in designing this session I also put out a survey online for professional performers that identify as neurodiverse to give their input and to identify and contact 15 professional performers. That was very exciting to me and will include their perspectives as appropriate as we go. That is a perfect time to close the door because we're done with introductions and hopefully that will help us focus. Okay, great. I always think it's really useful when we're in a space for the first time to define that space so we come to it with an intentionality. So this session is an inclusive space including people with and without disabilities that intentionally privileges and prioritizes neurodiverse perspectives. Which means if I facilitate this right I will be doing a lot of listening. That will be doing a lot of listening. The majority of us will be doing a lot of listening and learning. Okay, this comes to a tenet of best practices in accessibility across the disability community. Which is the idea that whenever possible we try not to have conversations about people without them in the room. So the phrase in the disability rights world is nothing about us without us. They've recently updated this statement which I really like in this ability rights to nothing without us. Right, if we're everywhere then nothing without us. But I always find that to be a good guiding principle for my own best practices. That also means that we're going to be discussing disability and difference through a social lens rather than an individual lens. So we won't spend time talking about individual deficits, diagnoses or impairments. What we're going to be talking about is creating social spaces that are accessible. And that will come back later in this session. But in particular with the neurodiverse community the accommodations that they need in general one trend that I found in looking at that survey. Is that they have very little to do with an individual need and a lot to do with a safe social space. So what words are we going to use in this session? I borrowed this from Spectrum Theatre Ensemble for the panelists that will be sharing their thoughts with us today. They're going to let us know what they have to offer the room and they will also let us know what they need. And that's going to be it in terms of language. Before I turn it over to the panel I want to acknowledge that a lot of us that are here trying to make more accessible spaces. Don't always have the opportunity to include people from the community in every conversation that we're having. So that while nothing about us without us is a wonderful goal and guiding light that's not always possible. So I made a little cheat sheet for you. If you are having conversations as a neurotypical ally I also would like to share some guiding principles as we think about that. We are going to try to honor lived experience whenever it's possible. We are also going to give our collaborators that we work with autonomy, space and privacy whenever it's possible. And we are going to assume as neurotypical allies that everyone in this room is using respectful and has a positive intent as we use accommodation-centered language. I do not want to spend this time talking about language because I think that that can sometimes create its own barrier. But if you're having this conversation at your organization for the first time I always like to give examples. Talk about an artist that needs a specific accommodation. A designer that uses a specific gear or needs a kind of space or a patron that requests a specific service. That way you don't have to worry about describing an individual, their life experience, their disability or impairment. What you're describing is what they need to be successful in your space. And that's all I'm going to say about language for now because I really want to make sure we make space and time to hear from the perspectives that we have from the panel. So we're going to start by talking about the experiences of the individual performers that we have here and then we'll broaden it out to an organizational perspective. So we're going to start by talking about accommodations for performers. And Ava, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit as an ensemble member at Spectrum Theatre Ensemble about some of the accommodations and routines that you have in place with your ensemble. One of the things that I noticed at Spectrum Theatre Ensemble is, as you mentioned, what can you offer and what do you need? And I think that's a great way to get to know people because offer tells people who are able to tell their strengths, whether they think it goes with what we're doing or not. So people can say, I love drawing, even if we might never be needing them to draw for that project. And also what do you need helps tell also the people who are collaborating with your ensemble members. And sometimes I think more importantly, the people in charge of how to best give you direction and for everyone to get what they need out of the other person. So many people in Spectrum Theatre Ensemble say they need clear instructions. It's not assumed that someone will know how to do something or they say to give you examples. But clear instructions is definitely across the board that many people say it really helps. Is there an example of, you mentioned somebody said I might be really good at drawing. Is there another example of something that someone has said at Spectrum Theatre Company that they have to offer? Yeah, what type of example. So another ensemble member that maybe said, here's what I have to offer to this rehearsal process or for today. Yeah, I mean some people say they enjoy writing. Some people say more random things like they're double-jointed. So what you're looking for like a specific scene. That was it. And I know Clay as the artistic director that clear instructions is a big part of that. And another piece of that is the policy that you have for breaks. Right, for breaks. This is something I actually, when I started working with neurodiverse communities and I myself have been learning disabled as well. So I have some relation. I found viewpoints to be a really effective and healthy tool. And so I, through a grant, got to work with Anne Bogart. And the first thing we were able to identify is how do you adjust viewpoints. And the first thing we identified was to allow people to leave if they need to to step away. That way if they have sensory overload or something or they're just having a bad day. But our rule is that any project or process you are allowed to step out if you need to. But when you step out, your mission as an ensemble member is to be looking to find your way back in. That is honestly how we've identified some of our talents too. Because one of our actors who struggled at first being in the process, in the circle, stood out and started drawing what he was thinking and feeling watching the others. Which became a whole part of our first device piece. This image, because he kept drawing spiders. And I asked him why and he said, well the only thing I'm more afraid of than being in that circle are spiders. But it became a part of our project. It created art. And honestly some of the best art I've ever been a part of. It's how we make it an advantage and not a deficit that we have. Can you talk a little bit about accommodations that you might need in rehearsals. And then kind of go over to auditions as well. Sure. So, that's my tick by the way. One of them and I'm going to do it a little bit more because I'm talking about it. It'll die down in a second. It could be very overwhelming. But luckily I talk about it now in public when people think I have swine flu or something. And it's helpful. So making it an asset as opposed to a hindrance. So speaking of which, in rehearsals I am probably only recently very vocal about Tourette as an actor. So I don't have a ton of experience approaching a director. I'm telling them exactly what I need so that I can be comfortable so that I can be fully functional. Often what has happened in the past because my ticks in the last however many years have been more vocal than physical or motor. As the director will approach me. Because I'm focusing on the work and when I'm not performing my ticks are pretty loud and often disruptive. And they'll just sort of be like what can I do to sort of help this process so that the audience doesn't hear your ticking before you're coming on. And they're always doing their best to be helpful. And I've determined that I need to often just be really far away from the stage because I typically do theater. Which often means I'm down in the depth of the backstage area like ticking my brains out before I come on. And at that point it's like a switch goes off and I come on and it's not really affecting me. I'm thinking about it but it's not coming out as badly. So being able to accommodate the unavoidable vocal outbursts that I have. And for me they're not words or curses that's actually quite rare for people with Tourette. But it is clear in my throat sniffing stuff like that. But feeling like I can still be part of the project and just have some accommodation so that I'm not going to lose my job. And also that I'm not draining from the creativity of the project so that I can take the time I need. Which is a special accommodation but being able to come out and deliver just like everyone else. Or better maybe. And beyond that I've worked for the last several years on this individual project about Tourette's syndrome with my collaborator Kel Haney. And so that's a very unique instance and I've gotten very very personal in discussing what my entire life is and what we're going to put into the show. And we've had to learn like Gardner is freaking out and he has to do like 100 jumping jacks right now. And then that ends up in the show. Literally there are parts of the show where I'm talking about something and I just start doing jumping jacks. And it's a very physical show. So that's been very interesting from a rehearsal perspective, a unique rehearsal perspective. In terms of auditions I have not really talked much about having Tourette's to casting people to anyone in an audition room very much. I mean most people who know me know it and they obviously if they do a little bit of research they know that I have Tourette's and I'm kind of a spokesperson for the community. So at this point I'm not too worried about you know whether I'm not going to get a part because of it. But I tend to like I personally tend to approach the audition with the attitude that I will take care of myself. I'll do what I need to do you know down the hall the bathroom whatever. And then when I walk in I'm really no different than anyone else. And I tend to use that as a way to like show like you know yeah a phrase we use in the community is I have Tourette's but Tourette's doesn't have me. So I think like I could show them like yeah like when I'm talking to you face to face I might sort of you know I might like sneeze on you or I might you know sort of do something that you know is a little odd or off-putting or right before the audition I might you know need to do my thing down the hall. But when I walk in I'm you know I have my training and everything and you won't necessarily know it. And that said I mean I've you know occasionally gotten into conversations with people about it where you know with the wrong person it could you know really do a disservice to me. But you know I'm so used to sort of talking about it as a gift that it can serve. Thanks Gardner. I want you to know that by and large Gardner's experience of I manage my own auditions. This is not a conversation I have at auditions was the majority of responses we got from the survey. People said it is not safe for me to disclose at auditions. It is not something I want the room to know when I do it ahead of time. And I have figured out a way for better or worse to find what I need in an audition process. Now the tide is slowly changing. Eva I think it was your survey where you said I'm getting slowly more comfortable kind of telling people. Well I think yeah just like this saying to this room that I'm on the autism spectrum is definitely really a little scary and new for me. Since I was diagnosed I wasn't diagnosed that too. I was diagnosed my senior year of high school so around 18. And that's for many reasons because girls present differently than boys and because I wasn't like disruptive and yelling and what not. You know the school I went to a public school and just like any school you know they didn't want to see something that they didn't want to deal with. You know so they didn't think I had any problems but long story short I was diagnosed late. So it's somewhat new in my life you know thinking about it you know identifying as it and now talking about it. So yeah I think definitely I agree with the audition part and I wrote in my survey I said unfortunately I think some of the reasons why people don't say anything about themselves when they come into the audition part is because I say hopefully the tides will be changed. But I say I definitely know for some people you come in you say you got autism you got whatever you just lost the job. They're not even listening to you they're like oh right went to my coffee break. I ain't hiring this person I'm not dealing with whatever they need to do. I don't want to you know I think a lot of times as I said being clear sometimes means restating what you said. Or if you think that you're clear sometimes it's not clear to other people. And in the everyone understands the fast world of theater you know and even faster in like film and TV they don't want to slow down for any you know so. But I think speaking about it and having not necessarily the audition process where it's very judgmental but speaking about it in more conversation. And I said once they hire you then you can say hey now you want them now this is what you need to retain it. And one of the things that we've been discussing as a group the clay is the idea that Spectrum Theatre Ensemble is almost flipping the script. So can you talk just briefly about that idea of the traditional audition versus the way that Spectrum Theatre thinks about auditions. Oh I just wanted to say or also people you know as you said then you go in and just like anyone else you know people don't want special treatment or to be hired you know as that one. Yeah because when we talked about this it's something that auditions inherently because we see hundreds of people if not thousands. The purpose of an audition is to eliminate options and if people bring in problems they have that gives you reasons to eliminate someone. So I think that's a lot of what we do in our ensemble and why we are an ensemble is that we find work that can fit us but also stretches us in new ways. I've said since I started doing this work four years ago that I never every project I'm doing is intentionally more challenging or challenging in a different way than we've ever done before. Because A. I think that makes it interesting for other people and B. it extends the balance of possibility of what we can do which then shows others and sparks their mind into what they can do which expands the conversation in the field. Again though what we've been working in the process is why that rule that we keep saying is our first rule. What can you offer and what do you need is that I intentionally ask people to give me their accommodation needs and so I make it a part of my audition. Is that I want you to express yourself but I want you to start with what you can give me because that's the fun part. And then what I need is where I can reflect on something and be like cool I can do that I can give you that. And the flip that happened in my head when we were talking with you said when I'm looking at an audition process I'm thinking how can I use this person. What do they have to offer. The answer is already yes and that idea of not worrying about elimination. Exactly. And I know that's tricky and that bumps up against a lot of the practicalities of our jobs these days but it's a wonderful piece to have I think for our hearts as we move forward. I thought it was really interesting. Mickey Rowe also completed the survey. He's the actor on the autism spectrum that worked with Ben and IRT rep when they did in the interrupt for a theater when they did the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. And as an autistic actor Mickey is very vocal. He's a wonderful advocate. He wrote in his survey in rehearsal and in performance my autism is an asset. It makes me really good at knowing where we are. It makes me really good at following repetition at trying something new at ingraining what is needed to be done for me in performance. He said the only time in which my autism hinders me is the audition process. So if I can get through a traditional audition process then my autism is going to benefit the companies that work with me. And I know that in a minute Ben is going to talk a little bit about the audition process with IRT but part of that is offering options to make auditions more accessible. Mickey's audition at IRT was by video and that is sometimes more accessible to this community sometimes not. So we'll keep talking about that as we go. Okay. So how can we kind of summarize this summary is based on some of the stuff we've talked about today but also based on the survey. I think this one's really important. We all want to be really accommodating and great. So if I learn anything from prepping for this panel it's that the needs that these that performers that have are very minimal. So when you ask them for what they need and they tell you believe them and give them just that. Actually before we get into that Ben can you talk a little bit about Mickey's role at IRT and how the organization kind of made accommodations for Mickey. Well we're made almost nothing because Mickey needed very few. Great. And I think the largest thing was we brought Mickey in a few days in advance of rehearsal to work with both the director, Lisa Brayden and the movement director. Partially because we were utilizing a lot of Mickey's circus skills in the piece that we're doing incorporating some of the things that Mickey is incredibly good at. Partially because he is on the spectrum which he identified. He's like I will do this. I will get on the musical and it is going to be fabulous. And it was. So you know we also provided the script to Florence Advanced so Mickey had a lot of time to work with the text in advance and work at his pace in memorizing that epic role. Which I think is the amount of text is what sometimes we immediately go to this X person can't do this. That is not true but immediately we imagine there are only these very few specific individuals who can handle X kind of role. That's just not true. And Mickey also identifies as legally blind so a lot of his accommodations for having the script in advance were being able to blow it up to a size that felt really comfortable for him. So it's about kind of offering those options so that he was prepared for the intense rehearsal process that came next. I always think that's really interesting. Another thing that came from the surveys is that if it's possible to have kind of a quiet calming even private space before an audition that can be really helpful. And then once the audition begins thinking about a relaxed calming and encouraging atmosphere. There was one participant in the survey that said of all of the parts of the theater process auditions rehearsals tech and performance. The biggest thing that felt inaccessible to this person was an audition face. He said I don't know how to make a good first impression. He said what helps me in that situation is if the person running the audition meets me in the hallway and says hi and we walk into the space together. That is a very small accommodation to provide for someone where you know that's going to be a huge piece of their anxiety and you're going to get their best work when you give them that kind of accommodation. I thought that was great. Sometimes additional time for auditions or for callbacks. Sometimes it's the space in between an audition and a callback. If you think it's likely that you're going to call someone back if you provide that material in advance. The performers I've talked to do not mind prepping material if you decide not to call them back. They don't feel like you're wasting their time. If you say I think I might want to see you for this callback here's the material in advance I'll let you know. They say great we're willing to do the work so don't worry about that. And then a plan for breaks. So it's a little bit about what we talked about in Spectrum Theater Ensemble. How do we plan for giving people the space that they need. Sometimes that means casting a working understudy. Sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes casting a working understudy can feel really overwhelming. But it happens a lot for other kinds of performers. We make those accommodations for other performers often. It's a great opportunity for kind of an apprentice level. Whatever word you want to use that kind of thing. And it also ensures that a performer can take a break at whatever point in rehearsal. And then they've got a touchstone to check back with and say what did I miss? How can I catch up? How can I make sure we're on the same page? And that does not slow down the rest of your production team. So if you have a chance to plan in advance and provide that kind of support in a professional setting. It can really help everybody do their best for them. Does anybody have any questions about kind of accommodations for individual performers? At the end of the session I did kind of a summary. Again some more thoughts from survey participants. We'll kind of go more in detail on that. And the majority of survey participants also agreed that I could share their contact information with you if you'd like that. So let me know at the end of this session. Oh yes. You might be dealing with this later. Tell me more about your question. Stop bringing in a guest artist and if housing needs. Is there a specific need that you would that would concern you? Or just accommodations that would need to be I guess dealing upfront once the person is hired. Sure. We have one of the best company managers in the country in the room. Duck King. Duck King in the back. You've worked with a lot of different performers with disabilities without. What are your best practices in terms of making sure that people have the accommodations they need? I think once they're hired and if I'm notified or if I'm not I always ask in our first conversation letter are there any special things that you may need? And I even list that as like if you will have a spouse or a child coming if you have you know anything that wasn't discussed. And most of the time that stuff comes up during that time. And I end up just having a personal conversation with them and talking to them about what specific needs they have and how we can accommodate them or how we cannot based off of our facility or whether we need to make adjustments and make other arrangements. But it's a personal conversation. And I think especially when it is notified that we know that somebody may have special accommodations. I think they appreciate the personal conversation versus like you know putting them on blast or making it uncomfortable because the purpose is to make them comfortable. Is that helpful? Yes. We want to talk about in terms of individual accommodations as performers or anything in this genre before we jump into kind of more organizations. I might just tack on because our first project I had a company member who was from Texas on the spectrum who came and worked with us in Providence and was staying away from a facility that had these things for the first time in his life. The biggest I guess accommodation I've ever given is to think that they might need an escort to get them familiar with their new space more than another person would. So like they need taking them to the grocery store. But it was awesome because with David's example, David the first day really needed me to get him like everywhere and by the end was crossing the highway walking by himself farther than he had ever done in his entire life anywhere in a new city and was exploring the city on his own. But that helped. Just being helpful and being around is I think the biggest competition you can make. Yeah, I would say I never had to, I haven't worked that much professionally where they had to rehouse you. But definitely one of the things is as Clay said, yeah, depending on how long you're going to be there, walking them to the grocery store, you know, or showing them where the grocery store is. But also, you know, say you're rehousing people in New York state, right, and you know where your rehearsal space is and where the theater is. I definitely know because I'll actually be studying abroad soon. I asked for a, I said, can I, I said, so like where are these home stays, right? And I said, can I get a home stay that's like 10 minutes from the like walking distance, straight shoes, no public transportation. And I know sometimes that's really hard or difficult, especially in the cities and, you know, wherever you might have like a complex just dedicated to that. But it's definitely, some people are really good at navigation, but I'm horrible at navigation. So, you know, I can talk in an ideal world, I'd have someone to drive in there and back so that I wouldn't be on time, not late, not have to worry about, you know, train six, turned into an express and missed your stuff. You know, that's kind of stuff that's always possible. But for the audition, I really found it interesting that one person said they wanted someone, you know, like the audition monitor or whoever to walk in with them and say, this is this person. And sometimes that happens because the audition monitor is like, can I come in here? But it's definitely people who have auditions before, which is probably many people. Everyone knows the daunting, like if you're the auditioner, the door chairs, you come in and the room is like crickets silent. Whenever you're ready, you know. And I can see really how that's helping because you definitely feel not alone. And although people say, you know, we want you to be wonderful so we find the person right away, it doesn't feel like they're kind of, you know, against you. Like, you know, yeah. So I think that's a great way to end this section because I always think about the power dynamic that's inherent in an audition process. And if you are holding the power in that process, my guiding principle is that you're the one to reach out and say, we can offer the accommodation giving specific examples like Dot was saying of what a reasonable accommodation would be for your space and letting you take that first step because asking a performer that's also trying to get a job to ask for what they need is very difficult in that power structure. Yeah, because if you ask for too much. Right. And even it sounds so funny, but even in the surveys that I did this year and last year, even looking for the language around auditions, there are performers that say I will only go to auditions if they have an explicit statement about inclusion and accommodations and accessibility. So even though we talk about how we want it to be more than words and of course we do, sometimes just checking and making sure that your audition notice is saying what you're willing to do. Okay, so now we're going to shift gears just a little bit and talk from an organizational perspective about inclusion. We're going to start by talking a little bit with Ben about the process at Indiana Reptory Theater and Ben and I will tag team that since I was also part of that conversation. And then we're going to flip the script once again and have Clay talk a little bit about the exciting work that's happening at Trinity Rep in Rhode Island because I am hoping it will give us all some ideas for how we can model similar partnerships where we are in the world. So Ben, can you talk a little bit about from this past season, season 2017 to 2018, the evolution of sensory-friendly programming that happened starting in Curious Incident and then also where you're heading as an organization for next season? Sure. So I arrived at the time when we had just received an NEA grant to investigate how our exploring stages program, which is our play for very young audiences between like three and eight. And it's for a small theater, it's about 100, they sit on the floor and it was a grant to investigate how to make those performances more sensory-friendly. And to investigate whether we could have sensory-friendly performance dedicated, what that might look like for our organization. So part of that was engaging Tannery to help us with that effort and do some research. At the very same time, we had decided to do Curious Incident of the Dog of the Night time and there was a decision to investigate having the first Christopher who identified as on the spectrum, that character. And that's when we found Mickey and we auditioned Mickey and cast him and that led to the entire new section of how are we going to make this performance which is about a neurodiverse individual sensory-friendly. That was always in the works but now we're just kind of like, wow it's all happening so fast and it's so new to us and we have to do this very quickly. We have a rock star education team, Randy Pease and Sarah Geiss who have done a lot of work on this. They're preparing for a summer camp which is why they're not where I'm here right now. But we started doing that work and investigating. We reached out to Hands On Autism which is the local service organization and Tannery helped to connect us there. And we began to just create materials to help folks on the spectrum have access to our building and that included building these documents that will live on our website so that you will always know what to expect based on which theater you're going to. So if you're going to a theater, a big theater downstairs, this is what you're going to expect, this is how you get here, this is who you will see on the way in. It's a visual document that you can see and it lives on our website and that's for every one of our spaces. So that's now been crafted as well as looking at a story guide for each individual story to help folks know what is going to happen in each of these stories. So going forward into next season we'll have three sensory friendly performances. So one for Anne Frank, one for Christmas Carol, and then one for Exploring State. There's an elephant in the piggies, we are in a fling, so three different performances. And the goal is the following season that every single performance in our season will have a sensory friendly performance which is dedicated. For every show in the season we will have sensory friendly guides to help folks understand what you may expect in this performance and to decide whether or not it is friendly enough for you to participate and what to do if it does not feel friendly in that moment where you could go in the theater and what materials we may have access for in the theater. So initially we as an organization were like this is going to take so much time, so much effort, so much money, we're going to write a huge check to Tallery. We wish we could write more checks to Tallery because she's been amazing. You could write more checks. There's so much more to do. Can I speak louder? Yeah, I can. Thank you, thanks for asking. So it felt like it was like this daunting task that we were so far behind. We felt very far behind and so new to the game and there's so many resources out there that are already in existence that we could look at and organizations that were so willing to help so quickly that we feel like we moved way far forward very quickly and we know there's so much more to do but we're really in a space of celebrating what we've done and the staff is really celebratory. I think the thing that makes me the most excited at IRT is hearing people ask how can we make this more accessible from every angle of the organization, from marketing, from front of house and asking what can I do in this effort. That's part of the Hoosier culture is what can I do to make you more comfortable in our house and I think a lot of people didn't know that people didn't feel comfortable and so they're so excited to make people feel more at home at IRT. One of my favorite moments was we were like in the final stages of getting ready for the curious incident sensory family show and the education team got an email from the scene shop that was like you never asked us what we could do, how can we help, we're here, we're ready and we were like great, we don't need anything right now. But it felt so good for us to be like everybody is really on board, they all really want to do this and it taught us too like oh we can do a better job of communicating what we're doing, how our process is working and the resources that we're using at this time and the resources that we're hoping to use down the line, all of those kind of things. So there were two things in working at the program with IRT was that when Indiana Repertory Theater initially reached out to me, they had the grant to work on exploring stages which was already very designed to be very relaxed and sensory friendly. So the work that we did on exploring stages was just making that really intentional to our audience and communicating that the accommodations that were in place were indeed meant for them and were in place. So that was good. The other piece of it once Mickey was cast, that made some pretty big national moods when that happened and so the team at Indiana Rep said, we're really going to have you help us negotiate working with Mickey and working with this performer so we can help other theaters know how to do. And like I mentioned earlier, there were so few accommodations that were needed that I was like maybe I can bill you for half an hour of that conversation where I said we don't really need anything. And IRT was very clear that when they were auditioning for Curious Incident which was less than two years ago, they were really clear that they wanted to see actors on the spectrum but they didn't know in putting out that request of seeing actors on the spectrum if they were going to cast an autistic actor. They didn't know, they said we're open to seeing but we don't know, Mickey was the right person for the role for so many different reasons and was cast but that was not their goal was to cast somebody with autism. Their goal was to see autistic performers. Fast forwarding to the production that's happening this fall at Actors Theatre of Louisville the director of the production, Meredith McDonnell when she put out her audition call and she worked with Emily and Zach who are also here in the room looking at them to make sure I'm on point. She said I'm not interested in seeing someone who doesn't have autism for this audition. I would end every performer that I see I would like to identify in the spectrum in some way and it's cast. Zach or Emily do you want to talk a little bit about the casting choice? Sure, why don't you use that since you're with us? Sure, so we actually as Hillary was mentioning before in the panel was talking about we did have a collection of actors who decided that they would prefer to submit a tape both for geographic reasons and also because it was more comfortable for them and then we did also have a number of people come in in person that wanted to audition. It was really great we had, I'm totally forgetting the name of the theater in New York but there are a couple of collectives of neurodiverse actors in New York and producers in New York that our casting director had reached out to which was really helpful and they sent all of the information and encouraged all of their actors to come and audition for us so I feel like we had a really strong pool of people that we saw throughout the two days that we had auditions. We ended up seeing Mickey for the role, seeing a number of people that were on that list as well and we're really interested in this guy Alexander Stewart who is a Chicago actor who just graduated from college and is living there and had an incredible tape and then the next morning because he was in Chicago and we didn't meet in person Meredith and the casting director and we just set up a quick five minute Skype conversation with him where we just had a little conversation, it's not we weren't talking about the work we weren't talking about what accommodations he would need or anything like that it was just, we just wanted to make sure he was a nice guy too that we could get along with in the room and it took five minutes and we hung up and Meredith was like great, done. So within this band of less than two years we've gone from the first performer, the first autistic performer playing the role of Christopher to setting an industry standard that we're not going to see performers that don't have autism for this role and I think that's really exciting, when you think about organizational change and we think about how slow some of our initiatives can feel in the organization I just feel really lucky to be part of something where it's like no this tide is changing, this is happening and these are the new standards that we've decided as a community we want to live up to The other thing Ben that I thought was so interesting about working with IRT was that we were creating a sensory family performance for young adults that a lot of sensory family programming that's happening is for younger kids Actors Theater did their first sensory family performance of Little Buddy Fusu this winter and we accommodated a lot of young children and young families and it was great and they had the space that they needed and could feel like they needed but Ben and the team at IRT were like how can we respectfully acknowledge the development that we have for the young adults and adults that we're offering and that was a big chunk of our conversation was to make sure that we were still kind of on par and not talking down to our audiences and then I got on the phone with Clay and felt really silly because the program, the partnership that Clay's that stuff in theater ensemble has with Trinity Rep just flips that script completely So Clay I wanted you to talk a little bit about your partnership with Trinity Rep and what that means specifically in their sense Let's start with their sensory family programming and kind of do it Absolutely so at Trinity Rep I came in and built off of the work that they've been doing for 10 years Jordan Butterfield their head of education developed the Trinity Rep alternative imagination network which was classes for kids using theater with children on the spectrum which now works with all disabilities but because of that she had a group of individuals who had been training for 10 years in theater and that were on the spectrum so I immediately had a core group of people that I could form a company with We knew we wanted to do productions, create art and that has been amazing but we also very quickly identified that all of these people wanted to include other people and the first thing that we also know too and this actually is best stated in one of our again statements that came from a company member that people often forget that children with autism grow up to be adults with autism they don't stop being autistic and they do become adults both things are true so we wanted to make Trinity had already done a sensory friendly production of Christmas Carol each year and so had the understanding and infrastructure for it but we wanted to make sure every show they had because you know all these guys have seen Christmas Carol like 15 times growing up but they also wanted to see Othello and you know death of salesmen and everything that they do so we thought of our company took on the mission and asked Trinity and Trinity immediately said yes they're amazing we took on that we were going to lead the sensory friendly initiative and I think it's become our most valuable tool is that the difference in what we do in other companies is that our sensory friendly adjustments and accommodations are created and administered by individuals on the spectrum they're the ones who create the trigger lists they're the ones who are the ushers on the nights of our sensory friendly shows and what we keep realizing is that the accommodations are less and less encumbersome of what we need of what people may need we offer many different things but the biggest thing we offer is a list of warnings that prepare people for what they're going to go into and you can offer that every single night of the year that doesn't change your performance and we value we don't want to change the performance any more than we absolutely have to because again our company immediately identified that we want to see the show everyone else sees we don't want to see the autism show we want to see Othello we just need to be told that there's going to be a bunch of blood because that may be a little intense or that this light's going to flash because that will be intense and again that accommodation that also helps people with PTSD other issues so it helps with our military initiatives that we were already doing so that is really I think the big adjustment that we've made is that we focus we have people on the spectrum who are making these accommodations and who are administering them Ava is one of those people and Daniel Perkins who leads our initiative is now also employed as our assistant house manager so he's there every night sensory friendly or not but on the sensory friendly nights he is more in charge of what's going on as those accommodations and also prepares the audience for what they're going to get into so I felt really silly right being like a bunch of like neurotypical people being like how do we make this respectful it's like duh your resources are right there right so I think what's exciting about spectrum theater ensemble is that you're not relying on an individuals experience of what might be triggering for them you've got a collective and a community to check in with right because we know that disability and difference is community it's culture it's all of those things and I will say that we have multiple people that watch our dress once the technical elements are added we have several individuals who watch it and Ava can tell you we sit there we all have lists and they're not the same and we discuss through like is this actually in a sensory and because some of it too is like is this a sensory thing or is this something that you're just a little triggered by in a different way it does this need to be on our list and we've never we've had differences in our opinion but we always are able to find a consensus yeah like and even one time I was watching with someone else and both of us found nothing apparently we were like nope no no it's okay and then we sent it back to Jordan and she brought up some more points about how some stuff could be more triggered you know for people who might not have ever seen beer and stuff and that was to be honest one of the more challenging trigger lists Othello was like everyone like we all knew it we all got all this stuff right you know and that was the only one that Trinay themselves came back to us and said no I think and you know I say it to be safe you better and I think Jordan made some good points but she brought it back to us we all got to look at it and improve and be like oh yeah you're right that might be something that another person so again that collective atmosphere again neurodiversity which includes neurotypical people so when you go see a show at Trinity Rep one side of your handout is the list of specific moments in the show that might be intense this is a word sensory intense sensory intense I really like because that's neutral we talk about scary moments or triggering moments right which those words can sometimes have a negative connotation but I really like the word intense the other thing that really blew me away was the idea that the other side of that piece of paper is tips for neurotypical people so here's what that other side says this is the beginning of it I'm going to read it out loud to be accessible this performance is moderately adjusted to meet the needs of audience members with autism, PTSD and or sensitivities to light and sound it will be identical to other performances of the show but will feature a lantern discreetly placed to let patrons know when something intense might be coming and give them a chance to close their eyes or block their ears that's one side of it the other side of it lists some behaviors that audiences might see and Clay has the actual list he's happy to share it also includes definitions for the purposes of the PowerPoint I just put the words but just so that people that are coming to that performance know what they might see which I thought was really brilliant because for me when I say flipping the script it's the idea that those of us who are neurotypical need more accommodations than the neurodiversity we need more help understanding what space we're in what's going on and that everyone's safe than the performers we're working with than the audience members we're working with oh yeah go ahead Clay I'll say that too this has been a great revelation that was actually this side of the sheet was a recommendation by one of our company members Tracy we were coming up with all these trigger lists and we had a round table meeting with the artistic director and she goes yeah and it is it is what it is it's educating them because we've had people who've enjoyed the show in different ways and made noise and got up and moved and I can tell you because of this list we've never had one single patron walk up to us and say that something was wrong with an audience member we've never like as soon as we told them our audience loves being at these shows they are thriving that they get to be important the sense for the performance really shows you how easily you can just you know change everyone's perspective and then turn these things into a benefit not just for the people who are neurodiverse but everyone it reminds me of a story when my mom tells us a lot but when there was a theater production of Oliver Saxes the man who mistook his wife for a hat and bam she took me as a kid because there was a character one of his patients who had Tourette's and an actor portrayed it you know I was young and I was in the audience taking and really bothering some woman near us with what's gone and then the actor the character with Tourette's came on and she my mom saw her realize it and look back with like empathy and realize oh okay it's not a big deal and that's often been my experience as an audience member with Tourette's or just a person in public with Tourette's that if people understand they genuinely forget about it which shocks me because I never know what it's like for people with other you know special needs disabilities whatever the term would be for me Tourette's is just the way I think at every moment or every day so it's a bit of a relief actually when I learn that other people are like oh I don't even think about it anymore which is very helpful I will say that too because again we also our team trains the other ushers that will be there and the biggest lesson that I have is usually how do you identify somebody on the spectrum you can't so just be nice to everyone and assume they need to experience it the way they need to experience it and it really like again as soon as you change the mentality it really isn't a big change in every single thing you do it's the mindset of the audience and the people that are participating yeah and I mean all that you know really drives home the fact that you know everyone is like you know like like from my show like people would come to me after the show whether they had Tourette's or a cerebral palsy or know someone else in their lives who has it or is completely neurotypical they would say I really relate to the way you were talking about the way you think or what you go through and some of them might think like you know I think I should maybe be assessed for and it's just interesting because we all have these things up here that you know are a little bit different but they're all you know it's a nebulous bunch of categories well and I remember when you filled out the survey Gardner you were like when I go to a show that's not relaxed or sensory friendly you're like I have a spiel right or you like check in with people around you and you're like I'm going to cough I'm okay I don't have the birds there you have your spiel and you're like what I love about relaxed performances and I mean absolutely in my daily life on the plane coming down here yesterday I was sniffing and coughing a lot before the plane took off and I turned to the woman next to me and just explained and allowed me enough to the people around me and she was like oh no no no it's all good but yeah I mean in a relaxed performance and I'd like to see more you know perhaps people could think like oh what's that what's his you know thing so in other words right we can let people know in our audiences that we might communicate things in multiple ways if it's a sensory friendly performance we might have materials available in advance we might communicate things visually we might communicate them in writing like letting everyone know this was important to me in Louisville especially we're working with younger kids that have autism letting the other audience members know that everyone has the support that they need in the space and that they can ask for what you need so that some behaviors might look like distress right and so saying if someone is in distress they have the support that they need to do what they need in the space to do that and then the example of Clay tell us an example about raising your hand oh okay so and again something that we kind of inform and alert people to is that if someone's having an issue and needs to leave the show just letting them know we usually target that the members are on the spectrum who are helping them because they are also very conscious of I'm not going to come grab you but finding a way to be accommodating and again just them knowing that it's someone that understands what they're going through is coming to help them when they raise their hand is it just another thing just letting them know ahead of time because we could think that oh yeah if I had a problem I know to raise my hand you talk to be in a theater you talk to duck and below and be quiet and so just letting them know that this is a way you can alert us we do that at your theater with the blind community if their gear isn't working they're not getting the audio description they just raise their hand and then Usher comes help them and you'd be amazed before you say that they're like oh that's great because the last time I stopped working 10 minutes in and then I sat watching a play for 2 hours and I didn't know what was happening on the stage so I asked people the systems to know how they can ask for what they need great yeah and then just letting people know the purpose of this event is to make sure that everyone in the audience right is can relax and be themselves and enjoy the show until some of them just relax like it's a show we're gonna have fun oh I don't know why I included this I'm happy to share this with you but some of the themes I think that we've kind of touched on sometimes if you want to be inclusive you really do have to plan ahead you have to take a look at your processes and see if they're really compact what parts of those processes could take longer without affecting your bottom line where could you give people more space and time to prepare you want to ask people what they need rather than assume right how can you communicate with them often times in multiple ways right so one of the questions that I know IRT asked Mickey early on great on email and we were like awesome we can do that you know how do you communicate before something's happening while it's going on what's that system for raising your hand if you need it and then how do we debrief after right how can we create spaces that are open, honest, welcoming and flexible that give people the choices that they need and I love this one this came up actually at the session that we were working on last year aim for it to be possible we're all destroying together we're all figuring this out together and if organization calls me and they're like we'd love to work with you we figured it out it was great it was perfect I'm so suspicious I'm like there's something you're not doing there's a part of the community you're actually not inviting because if you're doing this work right it is messy it is hard constantly if it's me you're literally stepping on people so you're just like I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that great one of the final questions that I asked in the survey of neurodiverse performers was what do you want a room full of theater artists and administrators and producers to know so I thought this would be a great way before we make sure we do have some time for questions just for you to hear directly from those performers what they want you to know this one was from Mickey rehearsal and performance please help by making the auditions more accessible hang on hang on we got this I just gotta find it oh yeah great yes this is the example I gave you before right or how can we change that beginning moment of an audition to feel more accessible so that you're seeing a performer's best work I love this one when people are brave enough to ask they don't need to be surprised just accommodate right I also like this one I know my own limits help me to be honest and upfront from the start plan with me so I don't have to be nervous or guilty that you're going to ask me to do something I can't do right and I have to say across the board in the disability community in general folks with disabilities are really good at knowing and working in spaces ideally working in spaces where someone has kind of encouraged them to know more about that because a lot of times you spend a lot of time in energy passing right so when you're in a space where it's like no you be you that can be really freeing and really terrifying but once you get through that you really do know what you can and can't do so working especially for performers that have been in professional studies before in a theater as a performer as an audience member when I've given space to explore I do my best work with my body and my mind can wonder right so the idea that kind of separating what some performers need in rehearsal is not always what they're going to need for every performance like Gardner I love how you talked about like there is kind of a switch where you like need to do a bunch of ticking and then you're in general great on stage so that is true for a lot of Gardner this one is you I thought it was great to end with this do you want to read it? Sure I throw it off of adversity I always have a very athletic kinesthetic approach to the work and need to be in a room that approaches things in the same way I'm not interested in polite theater I mean yeah well I can say a lot of things about that but I you know when I learned through teaching that there are you know categories for types of learners some people learn well visually from in an auditory way I realized that you know I learned kinesthetically I've always needed to do things physically I grew up my mother's a choreographer so I grew up with like dance and I often get bogged down and feel inarticulate and lose my words but I am the most successful and creative when I can be like physical like you know like in an adverse athletic crazy way so again in my show thanks to Kel who's like a normie who could kind of like you know listen to everything and sort of blend it into you know 75 minutes of something you know entertaining and moving like I'm doing a lot of like running around and pounding and you know all this crazy stuff that is is necessary for me to like you know let it out which I think is related to I think something Klaida said about like at first you know it's nerve-racking getting in the audition room getting you know being able to sort of get past the you know real self-criticism but then once we get a chance to sort of exhale a lot of the accommodations are easier and then we just have time to explore and then ideally show you know the collaborators that like we have a lot to offer that they probably didn't even think of so include us that takes the mentality to just makes auditions more fun I don't, that's one thing for me as an on-site director and a narcissistic director since I've started doing this I enjoy it more because I go in like when am I finding when am I creating today instead of like oh I've got to see 18 people like it's different like joy in your work man it's a great side like side positive I mean I think well I think something I've heard from people auditioning is that like you know it's hard to watch an actor obviously it's hard to watch people who are nervous but like it's hard to watch an actor you feel like wants to follow an impulse but doesn't feel like it should and it's like why are we here like this is theater so it's really good to hear that because it's like if you can get over some of the fear like to actually follow the fear and like try something in the room alright friends we have about 13 minutes left before we break are there any questions yeah I am I took a lot from last year when you did something kind of similar along the line of accommodations to actors and had terrific experiences this year building on that I think auditioning in itself is actually a very dehumanizing process for anybody for the company and I certainly learned and I'm trying to kind of share with people that actually the process of doing auditions we had a general audition for actors and disabilities we ended up with like 10-15 minute sessions we followed a lot of the recommendations that you had with that was just a lovely way to meet actors and to get to know people and to talk through all the many unique and so I've also been a bit on the issue realizing how much the rest of our our traditions and our expectations have pushed so against them so I want to thank you for your work and thank you all so much for sharing your specifics and this is great yeah thank you guys so much a question I have I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about sort of with the relaxed performances especially with the slightly older auditions with the young adult audience some things you've learned or struggles you've faced about sort of working with members of the community and organizations in terms of like making sure that like when we're producing a rock sensory from the performance making sure that like we have folks in the audience who will be able to use this service and making sure that we're doing the work to let people know that it's a great segue into what I think like I said everything we do I'm trying to do more or go in any directions our next step for STE and our next year is going to be expanding this and getting the word out because that has been the biggest challenge is finding the audience and getting them aware that we're doing something more sensory friendly and that it's also available for adults so what we're planning to do people don't always self-identify they know we're doing a sensory friendly performance they're not calling us to be like I'm coming to the sensory friendly performance because I'm autistic they're just coming to the sensory friendly performance like everyone else does so that's why I'm trying to be more like oh we should have the trigger listed every performance maybe they're coming to a different one now but next year one thing we're really working on is kind of codifying people so that they can we can kind of create a national certification which A is to establish some best practices because everyone is trying this in many different places but more importantly to get the awareness to the autism community so that they know they can see a rating system that says oh this is an orange rated production they know what that means that we can create a common language one reason I will also say that it will be important to get it integrated into its legislation that if you offer cultural programming and you don't make sensory adjustments for people with disabilities you're now according to them are in violation of human rights so I think in the end of the rep now there's a second organization that won't have an entire season not in violation of human rights and I decided to help everyone not be in violation of human rights but yeah so when you said for community Claire was talking about in my opinion more challenges for the theater I think for community is I was talking to someone and she was worried about if the show was just general was going to be appropriate for the kid I forget what it was and so or you know there's community skin parts but I think she's more worried about appropriateness but I said well we have a trigger list for people with disabilities I was working at the box office we were on the phone she nearly called me off and said something like well they're ten or they're not a child and and I briefly said that the accommodations aren't only for children that sensory friendly isn't only for children and I think as we said people forget with people with disabilities grow up and have accommodations at a Christmas Carol they want to be able to see the more adult shows like Death of a Salesman and yeah I think many people do forget that they think all these accommodations are just for children and then when you grow up I don't think people think you lose it but you just either don't do it or just get along with it get used to it and I'll say what the reality though is when you lose all their services a lot of them end up alone in their rooms not out in society that's what happens they don't lose autism we lose them and it's going to take a lot of work to get out to them that they're welcome in everything we do but again I think it's that power dynamic where we say it's up to us to go get we don't do the programming and then say nobody came I don't know why nobody came I'm lucky that the theater free of audiences the professional theater free of audiences is Louisville stage one down the street had been doing sensory friendly performances for about five years so when we put out the word that Louisville was happening people knew what that meant so we didn't have to do the hard work of what is a sensory family performance the community knew about that and also Actors Theater of Louisville was really great about saying this also means that you can bring but also little brothers and sisters knew that they could come make noise leave come back when they needed to and we got a great turnout for the organization's first sensory friendly because the community knew what that was a lot of that work had been done and it was a delightful experience I just realized I will tack on one more the most effective strategy I have accidentally stumbled upon in getting to that audience and getting to come out was because the first couple performances you know how many people on the spectrum were showed up my most effective strategy is when I asked Tracy to talk to all her friends you know who knows people on the spectrum people on the spectrum hire them to be your people and you will get that community because as soon as I told Tracy there were like 15 people and she had told them the day before the performance they just called all her friends they told their friends they all came to create sort of from scratch that team of people who could come in and create the trigger list or start creating a rubric that could be incorporated into tech weeks of an existence is it just word of mouth is it what is the language for an open call I think the way we are looking at doing this again and I would love to talk to you about this when we go out to the community we are going to come to the theater and help them with planning adjustments and all this stuff but the other thing we are going to do is offer workshops first to the artists at the company of what they are about to experience and then do workshops with the autism community offer them something they will come they like the programming and you will then easily identify in the future with STE or in general as a consultant thing go around and how STE wants to quantify it I think it could be a consultant once it starts getting out there and people start doing it and that know of them you are like let's call these couple people and consult with us on how to make it sensory friendly I know the places will look to do those workshops the organizations are called transition centers there is probably multiple ones in every town and those are centers that are focused on young adults helping the bridge from high school into either college or adult life so those are the population centers that will have the people that you are looking for the autism self advocacy network ASAN is also a great resource you can plug in on their website where is the closest one to where I am and I know for example there is not an official chapter in Louisville but there is one in Lexington which is not far and you better believe people in that chapter in Lexington know people in Louisville unofficially because it is ASAN you know that you are working directly with autistic people which is great especially if you are doing programming for younger children just be really careful that you are working with people that are self advocating for the autism community rather than it is still out there friends rather than an organization that is looking for a cure so just know that as you are moving forward another question yes this is kind of a super specific or just general if just any sort of advice given your experiences working with different performers and working on pieces yourself I work at the playwright center which is focused all on playwrights process and therefore in our workshops and readings it is basically cold reading and new pages in your work because everybody is encountering cold readings at various times do you have any advice or ways to make cold readings more of inaccessible or less of a stressful thing we have done it actually in our first year our first production was a completely devised project which ended up with 140 pages that we cut down to 70 in the last three days and literally the guy who had the sheet and we built away from that be reading which was interesting exciting and the last production we actually just finished a commissioned piece with a playwright with a hearing disability and our company so y'all had what like y'all had new pages the day of the performance not exactly that wasn't cold reading okay so now let me explain it wasn't cold reading cold reading is also an audition and so as many things tacked on yeah to answer your question I'm not really quite sure because I know that I always struggle with cold reading I like better some of this cold reading is quickly like yeah just get it wake up go don't have to prepare anything and sometimes I like better when I feel more in control I have my monologue I've worked on it forever I was much ahead of time as you can to give people a chance to read the part maybe ask some questions give a couple like description of the character so you're not just going in reading something random but I know cold reading is hard for anyone I know I always end up sounding really pedantic not like in character just like you know reading and so I would say the most part is ahead of time and being able to answer questions yeah actually I'll tack on to that I do know what my biggest accommodation I would make is is to let them know ahead of time if you feel like you messed up I will let you go back out I will work with you on it or whatever you need and then I will let you do it again and we can do that until you feel like you succeeded sure so the next step up is that we are going to try again if that's what we need to do that will be your best accommodation you can make so like in the context of when you workshops so it's basically you know you're hired, you're cast but we can't always give pages or the pages you get ahead of time will change because the playwright will write it up so adapting what you're recommending to kind of talk about how that you know we're all going to do our best and read it and then we're going to have chances to work things and chances to review things I was just really clear about the process because we just did a reading of a full length play and again yeah we're changing at least in the last couple of days I don't think there were I was just really clear in what it was and that we were reading off the script and you didn't have like again they were making eye contact at moments it was a a concert reading really bold accommodations you need to make just be very clear about the process and get them comfortable with it ahead of time and maybe I don't know even if it's not true maybe I think it would help to just have people reassure that however you choose to read it that time is okay because I think for stage readings not stage readings for cold reads definitely since many people are getting the same you know peace you know at least in my opinion I always think that they're looking for a specific way that you would want to read it well when you come into your monologue they have no clue what monologue you're going to choose but when someone gives you a piece of text that they wrote or you know they're like hey this is the text in the play just reassuring that maybe even if it's not true that they'll you know whatever way they read it yeah I would say that if it's a strip and giving them practice of just doing the exercise like if you're worried about it have an experience just giving them another strip like hey let's practice I'm just going to hand you a strip and we'll try reading it and just giving them that doing it makes you more comfortable okay thank you we're officially at time so I want to recognize that we'll go ahead and let the we have something directly in this room I know it's lunch okay great so we're going to go ahead and open the doors which is your we're not going to feel bad if you need but if you need more follow up or have any more questions we're up here so thank you so much for your time