Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Curtainbox Theatre Co, Ninth Post

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted. The office is a brick oven when it’s super hot out, so Kim decided to cancel class on the 18th for the students’ safety. This week it finally cooled down a little, so we had class on Monday. After doing a few warm-ups, including sound ball which the students are getting really good at, we read through two of the final scenes, including the scene for the pair I was working with last week. It was really fun to see the students perform, even though it was only a cold reading. It was apparent that the students had internalized many things that we had taught them, such as articulation and projecting. This is particularly notable, as autistic individuals in general have a strong tendency to mumble or stutter. One student in particular often can only rapidly repeat the first syllable of what he is trying to say. Fortunately, this can be dealt with by counting down from three to the student. I don’t know specifically why this works, but I’d guess that it has something to do with the fact that autistic children take everything literally (sarcasm, for example does not register with them), and the student would not understand that the countdown at its core has no power or meaning.


Kathleen

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