BRATTLEBORO — New England Youth Theatre's Theatre Adventure Program (TAP) will present a Theatre Adventure Fashion Show: Putting on our Finery on Friday, Nov. 9, at the West Village Meeting House in West Brattleboro from 7 to 9 p.m.
The evening will include “fabulous fashions, live music, delectable desserts, and wild surprises,” according to the theater's website. Audience members are invited to attend in their “own splashy finery and to be part of a fashionable, cheering, and rambunctious event.”
Ticket prices are $10, $15, $25, and $50, and additional donations are accepted. All proceeds go to supporting TAP.
Theatre Adventure Program is a theatre arts class for children, youth, and adults with disabilities, but it also welcomes to their classes a smaller number of their typically developing peers. It is overseen by TAP Director Laura Lawson Tucker and Darlene Jenson, TAP's disability specialist.
TAP includes two separate theatrical troupes, one for youth up to 22 years (although this age is variable), and a second for adults. Often students graduate from the youth program and go into the adult class. Putting on our Finery is a presentation of the adult program.
“We are planning a fun and zany evening,” said Tucker. The fashion show will be presented in two acts. Before the first act, the audience will arrive to live music with Kathy Martin playing the piano. There also will be recorded music throughout the evening. Plenty of desserts are included with the admission ticket. Between acts of the fashion show, there will be a mini-auction, presided over by local celebrity Fish, a.k.a., WKVT's Peter Case.
But, of course, the main event of the evening is the fashion show itself. The fashion show will have four emcees, two students as well as Fish and Tony Barrand, TAP's musical mentor.
“However, I am not sure if 'fashion show' is actually the right word for the event,” said Tucker, “but I could not think of a better one.”
Tucker said the show came out of preliminary work for a spring theatrical event. Each spring both the youth and adult classes put on a public performance. This year, the youth classes will be performing a version of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and the adult presentation will be a new work called Enchantment.
Tucker says that it is through the adults' beginning discoveries for Enchantment that the idea for the show originated.
“In the early stages of the spring show, we were getting the students to create costumes for characters they were perhaps going to perform in the play,” she said.
The adult troupe of 20 students worked to build their character studies through costume, sometimes using pictures and photos as aids. They could create anything from Superman to Snow White or an imaginary creature of their own. In doing so, it was not just simply a costume creation but a whole character.
“We have been a month in development creating character through non-verbal means,” Tucker said. “From these characters, we plan to shape our spring drama, using some of them or perhaps developing new ones as the show sees fit. But the point is that Enchantment is co-created with our troupe, and is certainly inspired by their discoveries.”
Putting on our Finery is a presentation of this adventure in discovery.
“We decided to put on a show to display what the troupe came up with,” said Tucker. “Our troupe will wear the costumes they created. Using the wheelchair ramp in the West Village Meeting House main hall as our catwalk, our troupe will not only be showing off their clothes, but halfway down the ramp will be doing what we call their schtick, which will be a little pantomime demonstrating the character of their costume. It should be great fun.”
Modest beginnings
TAP was first created as a one-week summer camp during the summer of 2004, and is now a year-round program with 12-week semesters both in the fall and in the spring.
“We wanted to form a community theatrical program for those with physical, cognitive, and developmental handicaps, such as autism, cerebral palsy or delayed developments,” Tucker said.
“We went to Stephen Stearns of NEYT and explained the imperative to provide options for those with special needs. Stephen took the bull by the horns and came up with an initial $5,000 grant which got us off the ground.”
Tucker called TAP “the amazing, diverse, dynamic, inclusive theater program in our community because of the support of NEYT, as well as many school and funding collaborators, families, and, of course, students. And now the great support we are receiving from West Village Meeting House/All Souls UU Church.”
TAP students range in age from seven to adult. Some of the participants use wheelchairs for mobility. Many of them use recording devices or small computers to support their communication skills. Communication and support are essential elements to the success of the Theatre Adventure Program.
The actors engage a variety of theatre arts experiences: warm-up exercises, improvisation, singing, creative movement, pantomime, costumes, percussion instruments, and story development. Participant's interests and ideas help shape the curriculum. Performances are informal, and this provides a wonderful opportunity for troupe members to share their work from the semester.
Goals are to provide a supportive, creative drama experience, to draw on the participant's talents and strengths through creative expression, to offer a positive social experience in which a trusting and nurturing group climate is established, and to offer a year-round educational program that provides students with the opportunity to strengthen their theatre arts skills from previous semesters.
Each semester, two or three youth or young adults participate as mentors, who model and assist the other members of our theatre troupes. Most troupe members with disabilities attend with a caregiver, who helps engage and guide the actors.
“Our classes are informed and focused by what our students are able to do,” said Tucker. “After each class we might have a three hour staff meeting going over what just went on. We consider what we can do to improve things that need improving and support those that need supporting. I am often asked if it is difficult working with students who have so many diverse disabilities,” she said.
“But I say no, that the sheer difference make the work exciting. Here we find a diversity of talents and interests. The students inspire what we do.”