Applied Theatre Center at the Autism Forum

From ATC Executive Director Dale Savidge

It was a pleasure to be a part of the SC Autism Forum on Saturday August 6, 2011 in Greenville SC, representing the Applied Theatre Center. The forum is held every two years and is a networking and resource sharing event for parents and caregivers to people on the autism spectrum. Families, friends, educators and professionals in medicine, social services and the arts participated.



ATC Executive Director Dale Savidge with visitors.

In addition to keynote speakers and workshops, the forum featured an exhibit and resource fair. I learned a lot from the speakers but even more from informal conversations with people attending the forum. Caring for someone with autism is a huge commitment and often adds a great deal of stress to the normal pressures of family, work, school and other ordinary life challenges. Through agencies like the SC Autism Society, among many other support groups, people on the spectrum and their families are provided information and encouragement.

Our booth had a steady stream of interested people. What I learned is that people immediately recognize the value of theatre in the care, education and development of people on the spectrum. I have long recognized the potential of theatre to affect personal and social improvement in audiences and participants, but I assumed I had learned that through graduate study, teaching and experience. This recognition, however, goes to the close relationship between theatre and life which Augusto Boal wrote about in Games for Actors and Non Actors: “We are all theatre, even if we don’t make theatre.”

It doesn’t take a college degree or years of theatre experience to see how applied theatre is a rehearsal for reality (a phrase borrowed from Boal). The Applied Theatre Center is developing ways to connect theatre artists with their community in order to place our wonderful art at the service of the people around us – people who are either not able or not inclined to participate in traditional theatre but who, when given the opportunity, willingly engage in applied theatre and benefit from that experience.

And everyone it seems, whether or not they are trained or experienced in theatre, knows this to be true.