With a message of acceptance, Peninsula Youth Theatre’s production of “The Ugly Duckling” is a good one to be experienced by as many children as possible. Fortunately, the organization has made one of the performances sensory friendly, thus making it welcoming to kids with autism or other disabilities that create sensory sensitivities.
“The Ugly Duckling” will be presented six times over Jan. 19 and 20, at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. The final staging, at 5 p.m. on Saturday, will be the sensory friendly one, the first such performance for both PYT and the Center for the Performing Arts.
Jenn Poret, booking coordinator of the Center for the Performing Arts, attended a performing arts managers’ conference in Chicago last March, when one of the panels was on autistic and sensory friendly performances.
Excited by the possibility of bringing the concept to her venue, Poret approached her executive director, W. Scott Whisler, and he approved. She immediately reached out to PYT, a troupe already presenting children’s theater at the Center for the Performing Arts.
“They have the ‘Stories on Stage’ program, where they take children’s books and adapt them for stage,” Poret said. “They’re shorter productions, in our smaller theater. So we felt it would be a good fit for us to try it out for the first time and from there, hopefully to expand the program. PYT’s response was, ‘Yes! We were just talking about wanting to do this exact sort of thing.'”
It was decided that the premiere production of PYT’s “The Ugly Duckling” would work well. Poret consulted with Youth Drama for All, another organization that books at the Center, and works with children on the spectrum. They helped decide what wordings should be used, what should be included or taken out. Poret gathered additional information from The Segerstrom Center for the Arts and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Accessibility Office.
PYT Executive Director Karen Simpson Gardiner wrote a new script based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. She excised the gunshots as the hunters pursue their prey, softening the scene and turning the wild geese into goofy, humorous characters loosely based on the vintage “Saturday Night Live” wild and crazy guys. The violence has been minimized and loud noises that could have upset some onlookers have been eliminated. In addition, a crotchety narrator pokes fun at outdated, politically incorrect elements of classic fairy tales.
In Gardiner’s version, the tale has a positive message for modern young audiences. “I have kids in school,” she said. “And while we like to think it’s a lot better, there’s still a lot of mean kids. Everyone’s told not to be a bully. But the kids that are doing it don’t think of themselves as bullies. So my theme here is just to be kind. It doesn’t hurt you to be kind to someone, no matter what they look like or how they act.”
In its effort to make the production inclusive, PYT has designed different sets of light and sound cues for the sensory friendly show. There are no dramatic lighting or sound changes. The space never goes completely dark. “We wanted to make sure there was nothing jarring happening,” Poret said.
PYT Producing Artistic Director Loryn Hatten said, “It’s important to maintain the artistic integrity of the show and try to give this audience the same performance as a general audience, but to do so in a way that takes into consideration their sensitivities.”
Extra wheelchair seating has been added. “We’ll be opening the house a little bit early, so that people have more time to come and go, if they need to, or so they can become more familiar with the space,” Poret said. “We’ve also put together a pre-visit guide, which you can find in PDF form on our website. It has photos and talks you through each step in the process, from the moment you enter the building. A parent and child can look through that together. If you’ve never attended theater before, it could be a scary environment. So we’re doing everything we can to make it more comfortable and familiar.”
There will also be a quiet zone. “It’s a place to go if anybody gets overstimulated and needs to take a time-out,” Poret said. “They can leave the theater and come here and still watch the show, which will be on a TV monitor. But they won’t be picking up all the stimuli of the other people in the auditorium. We’re going to allow people in and out privileges, if they need it.”
Poret said of the production, “It’s something for an entire family to do together. And that’s what really spoke to me, because a lot of times families with a kid or an adult that’s somewhere on the spectrum, they don’t feel like they can go do something like this, because if somebody’s more vocal or expresses themselves physically, you have those rude people that are still out there that are going to stare. And this is a space that is safe, that is accepting for that kind of stuff. It’s a judgment-free zone.”
Center for the Performing Arts managers plan to mail a survey to those attending the sensory friendly “Ugly Duckling” for input on which elements worked and which didn’t. “That will feed how we’re going to move forward,” Poret said.
The Center’s entire staff, including house managers, ushers, box office personnel, cast and crew. have been receiving special training to make special needs patrons feel at home.
Hatten has prepared the young actors for any unusual reactions they might get during the sensory-friendly performance — children speaking out, questioning their parents or getting up and moving around. But introducing the joys of theater to newcomers makes it all worthwhile.
Poret said, “The kids who perform in the ‘Stories on Stage’ program are great. I see them backstage after the shows and they always have big smiles on their faces. I’m hoping that maybe after this one, they’ll have even bigger smiles.”
Email Paul Freeman at paul@popcultureclassics.com.
Theater
What: “The Ugly Duckling”
Presented by: Peninsula Youth Theatre in association with the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View
When: 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 19; 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 5 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018. 5 p.m. Jan. 20 is sensory friendly show.
Tickets: $8 (plus $2 facility use fee); http://www.pytnet.org or 650-903-6000
