Seesaw at AATE 2019

This past week, eleven Seesaw humans reunited in New York City to give a presentation at the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s 2019 conference. AATE is an organization of theatre educators whose mission it is to transform young people and their communities through theatre. This year, the AATE conference focused on equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and it included presentations and workshops from a variety of theatre companies, researchers, and educators. Our Seesaw attendees enjoyed five action-packed days of learning, listening, and exploring together.

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to present at this conference and to share a little bit of Seesaw magic with theatre artists and educators from across the country. Seesaw’s interactive workshop, entitled “Behind the Scenes at Seesaw: Interactive Multi-Sensory Theatre for Children with Cognitive Differences”, focused on our techniques and strategies when devising original material for audiences on the autism spectrum and with other cognitive differences. Our workshop began with a performance of part of our spring mainstage production of Clued Inn, an original devised piece centered around a hotel mystery which incorporated music, a cast of characters and Adventure Guides, and experiences for all six senses. Next, we led our workshop attendees in an interactive devising activity of their own as a way to experience a moment from our typical devising process for a multi-sensory theatrical experience like Clued Inn. Then, members of Seesaw led our workshop attendees in a reflection period and Q&A session discussing the feasibility and benefits of this work in a university setting.

Aside from our own presentation, our Seesaw Theatre presenters got to experience a number of dynamic workshops, presentations, and lectures while attending the conference. Impactful and thought-provoking keynote speeches were delivered by artist and scholar Dr. Lizzy Cooper Davis, writer and activist Kayhan Irani, playwright Alexis Roblan, and interdisciplinary artist Ty Defoe. In just one of the weekend’s many memorable moments, New York City’s All In(clusive) Theatre Ensemble delivered a spectacular performance of their own devised work. Another HUGE highlight was the presentation of the Outstanding Undergraduate Award to Seesaw Theatre’s very own 2018-2019 Artistic Director, Rachel Seidenberg! Rachel was recognized for her dedication to Seesaw Theatre and love for its multi-sensory, inclusive work. Here at Seesaw, we couldn’t be more proud of Rachel and can’t wait to see what she does in the years to come!

We truly cannot express enough our gratitude to be able to attend and present at AATE 2019! We treasured the opportunity to play, think, and grow alongside so many other incredible theatre artists and educators. Thank you AATE!

Workshop participants creating their own sensory experiences!

Sequin flip fabric is ALWAYS a hit!

Our 2019 Spring Mainstage

I’m overjoyed to announce Seesaw’s 2019 Mainstage: Clued Inn.

While last years theme was inspired by visuals, this year the theme was drawn from a desire I had to be a part of the adventure when seeing shows throughout my childhood. Growing up, I searched for stories where I could engage with the plot and feel like I had a helping hand in what happened next, even if the story was predetermined before I ever interacted with it.

After many conversations with this year’s Spring Mainstage Producer and Head Adventure Guide, we narrowed down possible themes as to what would best fit this vision. But the whole time we were constantly drawn to the notion of detectives solving a mystery clue by clue. We knew that this was the story to explore.

We can’t wait for you to join our host of characters as we solve a swanky hotel’s mystery before word gets out. And what better way to give our audiences the opportunity to engage with the plot as much or as little as they would like by giving them the most important role in the story… the detectives!

Our entire team is eagerly awaiting to see what the next few months will bring, but until then, who knows what our mystery will be!

- Rachel Seidenberg, Artistic Director

Our 2019 Winter Event

My freshman year of college I surprised my family by flying home for a long weekend in February without telling them. Why? To go home for the Rodeo. That’s right, in my home town of Tucson, Arizona all schools get an extra TWO DAYS off when the rodeo comes to town. I remember putting on my cowboy hat and boots, finding my biggest belt buckle and heading to the fairgrounds, the taste of caramel corn on my mind. Rodeo weekends remain some of my most cherished childhood memories.  

Now I know the Rodeo is not a universal experience, but it was my family’s version of a county fair. An annual day we all spent together sharing in a unique experience. This is why I chose Rockin’ Rodeo for the theme of Seesaw’s third annual winter event. Starting with Lunchbox in 2017, the winter event has always been about family; and this year I want to focus on helping our audiences find joy in experiences the new experiences from a county fair. I want our audience members to taste the kettle corn, feel the petting zoo, ride the spinning ride, maybe even hog tie a calf all from the safety of our space or their classroom. I am interested in adapting very physically exclusive familiar experiences for all of our audience members.

I am so excited to build on Seesaw’s winter event for the third year. This project has evolved into such a special, family driven, community focused show. With the guidance of our “Lost and Found” season theme we will create a fun-filled day for the whole family (or class) full of crafts, snacks, and sensory exploration. We can’t wait for you to join us!

— Savannah Runge, Winter Event Director

Our 2018-2019 Season Theme

I am thrilled to announce that we will be exploring the theme “Lost & Found” in our programming for the 2018/2019 season! As an organization, we are eager to have our season theme hold more weight in our artistic programming. As we are curating our shows, workshops, and events, we will be focusing them under this larger theme.

The phrase ‘lost and found’ has always been a relevant phrase for me growing up. When I was younger it took on more literal meaning. But as I grew older, ‘lost and found’ developed into something more than just finding a penny. As I came to school, I was feeling like I’d lost my home, only to realize I was expanding it by finding people to surround myself in my new home. ‘Lost and found’ became about finding experiences that made me feel loved and cared for.

So join us as we explore things lost, but more importantly, things found.
- Rachel Seidenberg, Artistic Director

Stay tuned to hear more about all of our upcoming season events! Mark your calendars for the 3rd Annual Inclusive Theatre Festival on November 17th & 18th! 

AATE Adventures

Emily Baldwin, Madeleine Rostami, and Rachel Seidenberg at AATE's annual symposium.

The American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) is a national network of artists and educators working to further the field of drama education and theatre for young audiences. This February, AATE’s annual symposium focused on the theme of Best Practices: Accessible and Inclusive Theatre. Organizer Talleri Adkins McRae invited Seesaw to present as part of the weekend’s Resource Roundtable event. Alongside Emily Baldwin (Director of Seesaw’s 2016 production EARTH), who served on the symposium planning committee, Madeleine Rostami (Seesaw Executive Director) and Rachel Seidenberg (Seesaw Artistic Director) flew down to Louisville, Kentucky for a weekend of learning and playing with artists from across the country.

One highlight of the conference was StageOne’s sensory-friendly performance of Hamlet. StageOne, located at The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, offers a variety of services, including hearing application receivers, audio description receivers, and ASL interpretation. Before watching their performance, we were fortunate enough to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the sensory-friendly aspects were created. We also learned about StageOne’s collaboration with a performing arts middle school, in which students with developmental disabilities worked alongside teaching artists during four classroom sessions to unpack and prepare the play. Students saw their contributions come to life by being audience members during the sensory-friendly performance. In the Louisville inclusive theatre community, professionals come together to create a cohesive standard for sensory-friendly performances. There is a cross-theatre partnership, in that every theatre uses the same terminology and techniques—such as social stories, tape on the floor to indicate where the audience ends and the stage begins, and touch tours— so that families know exactly what to expect at sensory-friendly performances like StageOne’s Hamlet.

Similar to Louisville’s cross-theatre partnerships, cross-city business partnerships exist as well. The Autism Friendly Business Initiative is part of a city-wide effort to ensure that Louisville is an Autism Friendly Community. However, a community cannot simply declare that they are “autism friendly.” They must also do the work to create accessible and inclusive spaces, which is where the business initiative comes in. According to their website, the program seeks to encourage and train local businesses in Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation. This is accomplished through a three-phase training program in which business leaders and their employees learn how to better serve the folks with autism across the city. Cody Clark, a performer on the spectrum, and a coordinator for the Kentucky Autism Training Center taught symposium attendees ways businesses and classes can be truly inclusive. In the spirit of the conference overall, they both emphasised the importance of “honoring lived experience wherever possible,” elevating the voices of those with autism when creating a program, and being willing to develop necessary components as initiatives evolve. Access is not static— communities must remain in continuous dialogue to ensure meaningful change.

We saw this continuous dialogue in action by sitting in for a talkback after The Commonwealth Theatre Center’s Trojan Women production. An ensemble member and the stage manager—both of whom are on the spectrum—and their parents talked about what inclusion looks like at Commonwealth Theatre Center. The two student presenters spoke about how theatre helped to draw out their strengths, or (in their words) their superpowers. They also spoke about how the supportive environment created by the staff and students was meaningful to them. The student who stage managed and did lighting design for the show discussed an especially powerful moment she experienced during the production. Her cues somehow got erased right before the show. Despite this major setback, she was able find a solution with the help of her teacher.  Her teacher not only delayed the show to give her time to regroup, but also challenged her to improvise the lighting cues as the show unfolded. We were amazed to learn that the stage manager did just that, effectively saving the show.

We heard even more about the great things young people are accomplishing during a visit to Louisville’s arts magnet elementary school. At the Lincoln School for the Performing Arts, we watched scenes performed by The Braille Readers Theatre, an ensemble of theatre artists who are blind or have low vision. It was particularly exciting to see The Braille Readers and Lincoln students work together through a project in which a Lincoln class of typically-developing fifth graders designed and described costumes for Braille Readers who cannot see. A Seesaw favorite was a description of a wizard’s cloak “that looks like the sound of lightly falling rain.” Designs came alive with multiple senses and textures that enabled both seeing and blind/low vision participants to experience the costumes in new ways. In advocating for access and inclusion in the arts education programming at Lincoln, students reached new heights through collaborative, creative learning. Access is artful, and by including this tenet in the classroom, teachers have the opportunity to unlock new artistic potential in all students.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to attend AATE’s symposium. Throughout the weekend, there was a sense that, as a field, we are on the precipice of major change towards inclusion in the performing arts. We cannot wait to incorporate what we learned at the symposium into our work in Evanston and to continue fostering meaningful arts access. 

By Madeleine Rostami and Rachel Seidenberg

Reflecting Back...Inclusive Theatre Festival 2017!

Courtesy of Ellie Levine Photography.

Courtesy of Ellie Levine Photography.

Thank you to everyone who attended Seesaw’s second annual Inclusive Theatre Festival, a culmination of our work in the inclusive arts, as well as a celebration of professionals working in this field! Our first annual festival last year was such a success, that this year the festival expanded to include two full days of programming, as well as presentations by artists and organizers, not just from the Chicagoland area, but from all over the United States. If you were not able to join us, read on for highlights from the weekend.

The first day of ITF, dubbed “Community Day,” focused on inclusive arts programming in the Chicagoland community and beyond. Presenters hailed from Chicago, New York, LA, Seattle, Dallas, and more.

Maddie Rostami, our Executive Director, and Christina Layton, our Internal Education Director and the mastermind behind ITF, kicked off our day with some introductions. We then got to know each other better with an icebreaker led by art therapist and educator Sharon Hyson. We broke into small groups with people we hadn’t met before and worked to create hats made of everyday objects, like egg cartons and newspapers.

After the ice had been sufficiently broken, we heard from several organizations about their work in the ever-exciting field of inclusive arts!

Julia deBettencourt of Snow City Arts started us off with a presentation about incorporating arts education in hospitals. Jamie Agnello from New York’s Trusty Sidekick Theatre Company then presented a video of their first accessible production, Up and Away, where audiences on the autism spectrum and their families experience what it’s like to explore the clouds in a custom made hot air balloon. Lastly, we heard from Special Gifts Theatre program participants about how they’ve been touched by the organization’s work in accessible musical theatre programming.

After a delicious lunch and the opportunity to chat about what we’d seen so far, we regrouped for the second portion of the day. We learned more about Evanston-based Mudlark Theatre’s opportunities for Northwestern student involvement, heard from Elaine Hall about how she founded the Miracle Project in LA after her son was diagnosed with autism, and discussed fundraising strategies with Nancy and Karl Schaeffer of the Dallas Children’s Theatre, which serves both typically and differently abled audiences. 

Interactive presentations included an improv performance and testimonials by PEEP Improv Ensemble players, a sample classroom workshop for Up and Away led by Jamie Agnello, and a collaborative Shakespearean performance by both teaching artists and actors from Chicago’s ABLE Ensemble. 

We finished off an already fantastic day with a networking gala at the beloved Evanston restaurant, the Celtic Knot, where students and professionals got to know each other better—all while eating delicious food.

Our next day of programming, “Campus Day,” was focused on inclusion on college campuses and post-graduate opportunities in inclusive theatre.

Our first presenter of the day was Julie Griffin, an occupational therapist from Aspire Chicago, who gave an informational overview of sensory processing, and how developmental differences manifest in a unique way in each person she works with.  We then heard from Christena Gunther and Evan Hatfield about practical, logistic tips for making any space accessible, followed by fundraising tips from Co/Lab Theatre Group co-founder Becky Leifman. Allison Mahoney, a Northwestern alum and co-founder of Theatre Stands with Autism, which is now Seesaw Theatre, discussed the challenges and rewards of founding Bluelaces Theatre Company in New York City after graduation.

After a break for lunch, we heard from Seesaw’s 2015-2017 Executive Director, Maddie Napel, about her Northwestern thesis project in which she traveled to several college campuses to help spread the Seesaw model and the work she has been doing with Seattle Children’s Theatre since then. We then learned more about inclusion in primary education, from Aspire Chicago’s Education Specialist/Inclusion Advisor, Greg Ward.

After a busy day of presentations, participants took part in a more interactive segment, where Katie Yohe from ABLE Ensemble led participants in a playing and devising activity. We finished off a fabulous weekend with a presentation by Seesaw’s very own research team.

Courtesy of Ellie Levine Photography.

We are so thankful for all of the presenters and attendees who played and learned with us throughout the weekend.  Without your passion and enthusiasm, ITF would not be possible. We cannot wait to see how Seesaw and the larger inclusive arts community continue to grow and to share that with you at next year’s Inclusive Theatre Festival! 

Announcing Our Winter Event: Snow Day!

Check out a note from our Head Adventure Guide, Ellie Levine, about her inspiration for Seesaw's 2018 winter event. 

Waking up to frost on my window and snow on the ground is one of my favorite childhood memories. This was the sure sign of a snow day. School was cancelled and we were free to explore the winter wonderland that had appeared overnight. These days were so special because they arrived out of the blue, with no opportunity for planning beforehand. They were days of following impulses and exploring.

This is why I think a snow day is the perfect setting for Seesaw’s 2018 winter event. Winter offers an abundance of sensory experiences: the feeling of gliding down a sledding hill, the sound of boots crunching through snow, or the smell wafting up from a mug of hot chocolate. I hope this event will be a jumping off point that will encourage our audience members to continue exploring the excitement of winter after they leave.

This is the second year of Seesaw’s winter event and I am excited to continue shaping it and building upon the framework of Lunchbox 2017. It will be a fun-filled day for the whole family to enjoy. We will be making crafts, eating lunch, and exploring winter through an interactive, multi-sensory theatrical adventure together! It’s an opportunity to make new connections within a family and also within the larger community. Throughout the day, parents and siblings will have a chance to share experiences with their family and to form a network by connecting with other audience members. We can’t wait to give each family a special day to play, create, and explore the wonders of winter together!

2018 Spring Show Theme: Wanderland

By: Rachel Seidenberg (Artistic Director)

When I think of my favorite memories from my childhood, Disney World comes to mind. I’m still fascinated how within this amusement park, you can be completely immersed in a world – wandering through Cinderella’s castle or entering into a scene from Star Wars. So when I began to look for inspiration for the 2018 Spring Show, I thought about creating a world in which our young audience members could become fully immersed. I imagined an enchanted forest. I have always loved faeries, unicorns, mermaids, and elves. With our spring show, I can’t wait to bring these creatures to life.

As I step out of my role as External Education Director and into my role as Artistic Director, I plan to focus on finding ways for our audience members, who may opt not to become engaged with the story, nonetheless to be able to interact with the world and be able to fully experience the magic that happens in a Disney-like Wanderland. I want to make, what can be a dark and scary place, into a world full of excitement and wonder. Hopefully, along the way, we can show our audience members that sometimes incredible things can happen when you wander off the path.

2017-2018 Season Theme: Celebration!

By: Rachel Seidenberg (Artistic Director)

I am so excited to announce that this year’s season theme is Celebration!

When given the task to choose the season theme, I immediately started to brainstorm what drives Seesaw. Eventually, my thoughts meandered to how far the Seesaw community has come over the last five years; we went from nothing to a community filled with passionate people who are eager to create accessible theatre. Every accomplishment, whether it’s creating a new event or seeing a kid smile, is met with celebration and the readiness to discover ways to improve upon that accomplishment.

This is going to be my third year in the Seesaw community, and over the last two years I’ve been surrounded by powerful people making great strides for this type of work. Just last year alone, Seesaw expanded to a full season, and we plan to continue that growth this year. This season, I want to make an effort to celebrate every puzzle piece that helps foster Seesaw’s growth: our board members, teaching artists, students involved in production teams for our shows, the families who passionately hop on the crazy roller coaster that is a Seesaw show, and, most importantly, the kids and young adults that come and play with us.

Don’t miss out: the Second Annual Inclusive Theatre Festival, Winter Event, and Spring Mainstage will all have their own twist on Celebration!

Seesaw - Making A Show!

We have finally wrapped up the season with last week’s production of our spring mainstage, Under the Big Top! Our spring show is our most intensive event and has an intensive devising process that makes it very different from a typical show. So here’s a look at what Under the Big Top’s rehearsal process was like!

We started every rehearsal with a physical warm-up that the ensemble created our first day together, followed by “flocking” – an exercise that looks a lot like a group dance, with the movements changing as different people were struck by inspiration. Typically, a game to warm up our imaginations would follow.

Our first week in rehearsal focused in on world-building – we did a lot of work involving creating moments in a circus and playing with sensory experiences. We did a lot of partner work where we would have a set amount of time to come up with a brief scene or set of experiences, helping us produce a lot of material just in that first week. This was as simple as playing with a prop in the space and talking about what we liked about it to devising a scene around clowning. We were visited by our lovely set designer, lighting designer, and props designer and got to talk a little about what our playing space would look like, as well as getting to physically work with pieces they had brought in to show us to see how they might fit into the show.

Week Two introduced us to research hours! The ensemble worked in small teams to research the different senses – taste, sight, sound, smell, touch, and the kinesthetic sense – and present them to the rest of the group in a variety of ways. We did everything from a “sight walk” (one person with their eyes shut being led around outside by a partner) to trying to identify objects by touch to guessing the ingredients in different perfumes! In between, we started devising more specifically, going for scenes that were directly related to our characters for the show rather than the general circus experience. We also discovered what our circus animal was meant to be – a Loodle (lion-poodle mix)!

By the start of week three, we were devising and finalizing the “scenes” we had with Concessions Lad, the Loodle, and our acrobat, Dizzy Lizzy. Team Music, our wonderful composition and song-writing team, also came in to teach us some songs and talk to us about what our other songs might be like, with the storylines we were building. We started doing stumble-throughs of the show, too, to work out any kinks in the sensory experiences we wanted to offer and cement our understanding of the show. We also did a little extra team-building to strengthen the ensemble. At the tail end of the week, we filmed our social story (video that explains the Seesaw experience for our audience members), learned our last songs, and had a lesson in ASL!

Week four started out with a recording session for our songs, and quickly led us into proxy runs. Proxy runs are a very important part of Seesaw shows in which friends of Seesaw come in to experience the show as audience members and give Adventure Guides and cast members a chance to practice. While proxies may be asked to adopt certain likes or dislikes (being sensitive to noise or being particularly active, for example), we generally just ask them to be themselves and simply follow any impulses they feel in the space. Proxies are especially helpful in identifying parts of the show that don’t translate well or that might be overwhelming, and are a very important part of polishing the show. AGs also practice on each other.

Week five was tech week, the week that we got to move into our performance venue and work with the set and final props. We spent some time getting to know the space, had more proxy runs, and started performances!

Seesaw’s rehearsal process is a busy one, but so much fun – and definitely not something we could do without the wonderful Seesaw community. We will see you next year!

Project Lunchbox

PROJECT LUNCHBOX

This year, Seesaw committed to having a full season – an event every academic quarter – for the first time. In the fall, we hosted the First Annual Inclusive Theatre Festival, this spring we’re doing our mainstage show, Under the Big Top!, and this winter we had a special day for individuals with developmental differences and their families – Project Lunchbox!

While our work mainly focuses on individuals with developmental differences, Project Lunchbox emerged from a family-centered perspective. We hoped to create an opportunity for families to bond with a day out and a chance to play together. By structuring a day to involve the whole family, Project Lunchbox tied together a desire to connect neurotypical siblings with each other, allow parents to network a little, and let the whole family form deeper connections through activities they could all participate in.

 We were delighted to spend the day with four wonderful families; with the focus of Project Lunchbox being to involve families with neurotypical and neurodivergent kiddos, our age range was nineteen months to thirteen years old!

We started the day with a song, where we got to learn everyone’s names and what we’d all brought to our picnic, and played a game to get our imagination going, with everyone thinking of all the things a pipe cleaner could be – a mustache, a wand, a halo… After our intro, neurotypical siblings went to hang out in one room for some crafting time while their parents and sibling crafted in another. In either room we chatted, made paper bag puppets, and got to know each other a little better.

Next we came back together for a very important part of our day – lunch! We had an indoor picnic, with each family receiving a picnic blanket with their name on it to take home.

It wouldn’t be Seesaw without some sensory fun, so for dessert we went on a sensory adventure.

Over the course of a few weeks, Maddie, our Head Adventure Guide for Under the Big Top! and some teaching artist friends devised a sensory show much like what we put together for our spring shows, but with an emphasis on the whole family being able to participate. Each of our teaching artists created a world around something that makes them think of their family.

Rachel started the day for us the way her family likes to wake up. None of the paper bag puppets were very interested in getting up, so we eased into the day with some “nuggling.” After everyone got some snuggles in, it was time to get up and stretch – leading us into Rebecca’s world, cooking in the kitchen with her family. In the kitchen, we smelled some spices and flavorings, and each family stirred up a big pot of something together.

From Rebecca’s world we headed into Emily’s world. Emily took us to play “outside” where we all created the sounds of a rainstorm that died down into a rainbow. We spent some time playing under the rainbow with a parachute and found a pot of gold. Since we were already outside, Marley took us up into the sky as it turned to night and we played in the stars. We decorated paper stars, made “star bugs,” played with some fun fabrics, and did a little more “nuggling.”

When we finally came back down to Earth, we ended the day by talking about things we were grateful for and singing a goodbye song.

Seesaw had a wonderful time with all of the families that came to play with us. In the future, we’re hoping to keep working on projects that involve the whole family – so stay tuned! But in the meantime, thank you to the families that participated in Project Lunchbox. We had so much fun, and we hope you did too.

A Note From Our Head Adventure Guide: Accessibility Abroad

When I try to explain the position of Head Adventure Guide to people outside of the Seesaw Community, I describe it as serving as the voice for our audience members in the world of our shows. I think of my job as helping Seesaw ensure that our shows are actually accessible. And I get asked a lot: “How do you go about doing that?”

My response is that I firmly believe that access to high quality art is a fundamental human right. That we need to listen to our students, we need to get to know them and learn what they want and need. We need to work with students and teachers and family members. And that we must always lead with love. And recently, my answer has started to include advocacy. If we want to create inclusive art, we must fight for inclusivity across the board.

So often in the models of theatre that we have in the US, the arts and disability don’t intersect. In fact, I would argue that in many facets of our society, accessibility is rarely a part of the conversation. There are buildings on the Northwestern campus that don’t have a single accessible entrance. That’s just unacceptable.

I had the incredible opportunity to study abroad in Ireland this past fall, and as part of my abroad experience I also had the chance to do some travelling across Europe. What I experienced abroad gave me hope in the future of accessibility within the states. I saw wheelchair users at the top of the Acropolis in Athens. I saw 3D models of paintings in art museums across Italy, giving visitors the chance to feel art they might not be able to see. I saw braille on every product sold in drug stores in Ireland. I saw programs across the European Union working to ensure that everyone has access to cultural opportunities, regardless of ability.

In the UK and Ireland, inclusive arts practice is thriving. I saw the first-ever accessible show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, created by a group called Frozen Light specifically for young adults with developmental differences. I saw a show called Backstage in Biscuit Land, a humorous two-woman show advocating for equal access, performed by a group called Tourettes Hero. I worked with arts facilitators that teach workshops with young people with autism, create films and theatre productions with young adults with downs syndrome, and lead art therapy sessions for adults with dementia (check out one of these awesome groups called Run of the Mill Theatre here). Ireland in particular has an organization called Arts and Disability Ireland, a national non-profit geared towards making art with and for individuals with disabilities (check them out here, they’re rad and have awesome frameworks for accessible arts practice across all mediums!).

As the Head Adventure Guide, my goal for this year is to deepen our commitment to inclusive theatre practice. I am excited to learn about other organizations abroad and in the states that fight for equal access in the arts. I am excited to have the ensemble help teach workshops in schools and strengthen skills in sign language and listen to our audience members’ wants and needs more than ever. I am excited to work with the board towards joining activist movements already in progress and creating networks of arts and advocacy groups across Northwestern and beyond.

With much love and excitement for a more inclusive future,

Maddie Rostami

(Head Adventure Guide)