the Autism Theater Project gives a voice to people with autism and related disabilities and in a way it's unlocking the stories that they have to tell and the the gifts that they have to contribute to the world that might not seem easily accessible at first the arts gives people a space to explore their imagination and explore different aspects of their capability in a place that can actually be very welcoming which is a um a theater setting uh for people on the spectrum it can be very useful and specifically because I've heard that certain people from the spectrum benefit from scripting which is basically when they're given a script for a conversation and how to start one and when it comes to theater and film they're given a literal script and within that script they in a way can express themselves more freely the Autism Theater Project was initially inspired by my little sister who's on the spectrum she has a very beautiful perspective on life but because she's limited verbally unless you're spending a lot of time with her there's only so much she can tell the world the Voice Inside series first came to mind during the pandemic and it was inspired by both a victory and a tragedy uh the victory was that during the pandemic because the schools were closed ended up homeschooling my sister and I saw her breaking through certain obstacles and then unfortunately a past student in one of my drama workshops was uh murdered both of those events made me feel like you know autism is has become this very big part of my life and I feel like I want to do something in response to especially to the tragedy so I thought you know let me create a production that focus more focuses more so on autistic teenagers and young adults finding success despite their obstacles i started seeking real stories as inspiration and that's how I ended up meeting the writers and some people on our administrative team as well who are on the spectrum who have these amazing stories and together we started creating this series i can't do anything because of you being that these stories are all based in truth and based in real people working with the actors and working with everyone we get to infuse the actors viewpoints and how they tell stories and how they describe things or talk or say jokes we create people that are real and instead it's not audience and actor it's just a moving storyline that people can feel that they're a part of and feel that they can connect to and really attach themselves to the best part of working on The Voice Inside has mainly been seeing the people involved surprise themselves especially the actors seeing them build their confidence because they're in a very vulnerable position at times telling their own stories and even when they're playing a character that was inspired by someone else they're portraying aspects of what it's like to be on the spectrum that are very vulnerable like having a meltdown feeling underestimated when there really is just a misunderstanding between them and a parent or a teacher i play the main lead who has autism who has spent seven years in high school in special ed he is told that uh he won't be getting a uh a high school diploma and uh would be getting a a certificate so he signs up for uh the uh the GED uh in order to get a uh into college i play Lily Taylor and I play an adult education teacher it's a little bit different from my world as being an elementary school teacher so I had to come in with a little more punch and oomph for the script i was kind of nervous cuz I'm not autistic and I didn't know if I was going to be playing an autistic character my character's name is Brad he interacts with the main character and I thought at first this character might be a bully he might be pushing he might be the antagonist but looking deeply into like what they've written what's being built I understand that like it's it's a mirror to ourselves when we're encountering things that we don't necessarily understand no they don't and you know I like acting because it's fun it makes me feel uh energetic expressive emotional and proud of myself uh and uh and the the work I do as an actor one of the best things one of the reason I do it in the first place is to put my feet in the shoes of another person i didn't understand what the challenges were with autistic people's in education and I'm like these things that I felt were simple that I struggled with when I when I was a child they're not even given the chance to struggle and overcome them as an adults because of how people perceive their capabilities to be i'm not just doing this for me i'm doing this for people that have been told that they have to limit theelves people that have been told they'll never amount to anything it's about making sure that little girl or that little boy or my students that even that I teach make sure they have a chance to know that you can dream big and you can achieve the goals that you set for yourself in life even though uh some people uh tell them that they can't do it uh if they want to uh get into acting they should just uh do it anyway seeing the impact of the work itself on the audience members has been the most rewarding for the team we've had audience members who are on the spectrum come up to our actors on the spectrum and they they've become these stars for them and we've seen parents come up to them uh to our actors expressing how the series helped reinforce their faith in their children who have been newly diagnosed with autism it all feels that it has a purpose and it has a meaning for the people that it's affecting i believe the success of the voice inside will make a huge impact on how people see the power of true collaboration amongst artists with and without autism because everything from the script to the the actors doing their scenes to in some ways the cinematography it all came from this very strong collaboration and I hope that as the show succeeds people will turn to us and and in a way find inspiration from how we address the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on the our team whether or not they're neurodeiverse and how we really get the best out of everyone for more about our South Florida community like subscribe and click the video below