Curt Dale Clark (left) and Cameron Wright, who plays Poseidon in “The Little Mermaid” show the audience the costume that Wright will be wearing. (Hannah LaClaire / The Times Record)
BRUNSWICK — When Collins Rush brought out his Collier the dog costume before getting dressed on Saturday, the audience was delighted to pet the soft fur, talking excitedly about their own dog’s names. When Nicola Fava, playing Flutter the butterfly, came out and showed them how her “wings” lit up with bright rainbow lights, the audience again started talking excitedly.
Rush and Fava both star in Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark’s “The Little Mermaid,” one of three children’s shows on stage at Maine State Music Theatre this summer, and one of two plays featured in the theatre’s sensory-friendly performance program.
(left) Maria and Katie Fortunato meet Jonathan Bryant, who played Prince Alexander in Maine State Music Theatre’s sensory-friendly performance of “The Little Mermaid.” (Hannah LaClaire / The Times Record)
These free shows are quieter, calmer variations of the full main stage production, but are instead shown in the rehearsal space without flickering lights, full scenery or loud sound effects. They are geared toward children and adults with autism, sensory processing disorders or other cognitive, social or physical challenges who may find the noise and lights of a regular theater performance overwhelming. At sensory-friendly shows, audience members can talk or move around if they want to, they can cover their ears, there is a snack break. If an audience member gets overwhelmed, they can go into a designated quiet room until they are ready to return.
The actors come out and introduce themselves and their characters. Then they come back with their costumes in hand, explain what they will be wearing, and give the audience the chance to touch the pieces or ask questions. They might also give a quick demonstration of something in the show, like tap dancing. Then, they come back out wearing the costume one last time before the show starts.
It is something that “happened here accidentally,” according to artistic director Curt Dale Clark. He was approached about four years ago by a parent who had questions about the lights and noise levels of a show, thinking they might be too much for her son. That sparked the idea to hold shows for people like her son. The first showings we small, with only a handful of people, but grew quickly. Today, they fill up fast, with more than 40 people attending each show and increasing demand for three shows per season instead of the current two. They fill a niche in the community, Clark said, and his only regret is that “we didn’t start them sooner.”
For Melany Mondello, the shows provide a space where her twin boys, Mark and Ethan, 7, can be themselves. Ethan and Mark have Lowe Syndrome, a rare genetic condition that Mondello said impacts virtually every part of their bodies except for their hearts. They are nonverbal, so often make “nontypical noises that people don’t understand or can misinterpret” and “make sounds to express their happiness,” she said, and with very limited vision, one of the ways they interpret their world is through touch.
Mark and Ethan have been to the past four sensory-friendly performances, taking in the singing and dancing, feeling the costumes and meeting the actors before and after the show.
Performances and events geared toward families with a member who has disabilities “provides an opportunity to do these kinds of things together without feeling judged,” said Donna Doherty, family partnership director for the Maine Autism Institute for Education and Research. “The parents can relax and not worry that their child is going to react in a way that might get them ejected from the theater or make them feel uncomfortable. … There are not a lot of opportunities for families to get out and enjoy themselves as a family.”
Some of the audience with the cast of “The Little Mermaid” after Maine State Music Theatre’s sensory-friendly performance Aug. 17. (Hannah LaClaire/The Times Record)
It can be hard, Mondello said, for her kids to get the chance to “get into the community in a meaningful way.” It can be easier to stay home, what with all the gear and her sons’ wheelchairs, but “kids with disabilities can do things and enjoy them too. It builds community for them,” she said.
Her in-laws have attended some of the shows with them as well, and it becomes a nice family bonding experience, Mondello said. “We can’t just run to the movies or go to the water park like other grandparents do,” but the kids have the “same desires to have fun.”
This type of show is not unheard of: Other theaters across the country offer “autism-friendly” performances, and in Belfast, actors at the Sun Theater Company recently partnered with the Autism Institute to host a sensory-friendly performance of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,” based on the book by Mark Haddon, which features a boy with autism as the lead character. In the sensory-friendly version, they took out a scene that originally had strobe lights and Doherty said the impact was still the same. None of the enjoyment was lost.
“Some of the things that we expect from theater, you can still enjoy without all the flash,” she said. “Our perception is that you need that flash, but for a person with autism, that would be too much.”
Children’s theater is Maine State Music Theatre’s way of reaching out to a new generation of theater-goers, actor Sam Allen said, and the sensory shows are a smaller, very important subset of that. Despite the fact that the Center for Disease Control estimates that one in 59 children born is on the spectrum, people with autism represent a “portion of the theater-going audience that isn’t very often catered to, if at all,” Allen said.
“Snow White” was his first of these sensory-friendly shows, and he said recently that he was surprised by how relaxed the show was and how attentive the audience was.
The shows are for a smaller audience than might be at the Pickard Theater, but the seats are always full and often with the same faces, he said. “They’re always so grateful and always so happy to see it. … It’s important for theater to reach out to as many groups of people as it can.”
As actors “we like to think we hit all our high notes and dance all our steps,” Clark said, “But it’s what it does for our audience” that is important. “It’s a niche that we are happy to fill for this area.”
To learn more about Maine State Music Theatre’s sensory-friendly performances, visit msmt.org/sensory-friendly-performances/
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