If you could meet your own neurodivergence diagnosis in the flesh, what would you say to each other? That's the provocative psychological question posed by Find Me, an intriguing original rock opera created by Central Florida's Without Fear Theatre. I recently attended a rehearsal of the upcoming production ahead of its Feb. 23-March 3 run at Fringe ArtSpace, and spoke to Without Fear's founding trio — writer-director Amanda Scheirer, composer-lyricist Dan Drnach and production manager Lern Morrison — to learn about how The Who and holiday-obsessed livestock come together in this "neurospicy" new work.
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Scheirer first became friends with Drnach a decade ago while working at Universal Orlando, and soon after she cast Morrison in her 2015 play, How to Say I Love You. Since then, the team has collaborated on The Unavailable Man-Magnet and The Red String: A New Musical, among other productions. "Any time we've had a project come up, we tend to go to each other," says Scheirer.
Their latest collaboration follows Allie (Laura Swindoll) as her life is upended by the arrival of a mysterious, mute stranger (Cat Cutenese, alternating with Jenny Ornstein at select performances). The stylized story is expressed through movement and minimalist dialogue, with Drnach's four-piece onstage band (aka The Party Farmers) serving as musical narrators. It's intentionally open to interpretation, according to Scheirer, who says, "We all agreed from the beginning to maintain the ambiguity. We want people to come in and be able to relate to it. If you have kids, you're probably going to put that layer of parental relationship on to what you're seeing on stage, and that's good."
However, Scheirer reveals that the script's real roots lie in her relationship with her neurodivergent child and her own later-in-life diagnosis. "Through him, I figured out that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree," she says. "But people can come in with any kind of circumstances and relate to the show. That's something that we really like to do in all of our productions, is have it be that anyone can sit in a seat in the audience and be like, 'I see myself on stage. I understand that story.'"
Although the concept behind Find Me was newly birthed by Scheirer, the show's modern rock songs — including the title track itself — emerged from Drnach's personal archives. It's instantly obvious that classic 1960s and 1970s concept albums are the foundational influences behind Find Me's score, particularly Pete Townshend and The Who's seminal rock opera, Tommy. "I'll never hide behind it, from the first chord you hear you know exactly what's up," cheerfully confesses Drnach, who previously crafted the 2021 Fringe Critics' Choice winner Cross Country. But he also points to Pink Floydian instrumentals, singer-songwriter-inspired "soft, delicate moments," and especially a ridiculous recurring "Party Farm" punk-rock anthem as representative of the show's wide range of musical genres. "I tried not to take it seriously at all," Drnach jokes, describing it as "the Ramones, led by Fred Schneider, doing a children's television show about animals on a farm that celebrate every holiday every day."
Audiences at Find Me can also support Without Fear's fundraising efforts for the ARRE Foundation's research into ASXL genetic disorders like Shashi-Pena Syndrome, of which Scheirer's son is one of about 50 known cases worldwide. And arrive early or stick around afterwards to visit the black-box theater's gallery of creations by local neurodivergent artists, cheekily dubbed the "NeuroSpicy Art Market" after the trendy TikTok term. "A lot of times 'autism' or 'ADHD' or even 'neurodivergent' to some can feel very clinical and boxy, and I think 'neurospicy' is a way of taking it back [and] really championing it and making it something you can be proud of," explains Scheirer. "You are in on the joke; the joke's not about you, you're in on it."
As an inaugural cohort member of Orlando Fringe's Collective incubator program [full disclosure: My spouse helped design the program], Without Fear is not just getting to mount Find Me at Fringe's Church Street venue. The trio has also been participating in months' worth of educational sessions — including workshops on intimacy direction and entertainment law — aimed at developing their company for the long run.
"All of the individual classes and workshops that we've been exposed to, these are practical master classes," says Morrison. "We are given such wonderful pieces of information that we'll put towards our company for the longevity of it, but also make us [hold] to a higher standard. Because I think that in theater in the last decade in Central Florida, there's now an understanding of how we should be running things, how we should make ourselves more professional. And I think that the Collective really provides you with all of those tools to get you to a more professional space."
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