When How to Dance in Ohio premiered on Broadway’s Belasco Theatre last year, it made history as the first Broadway musical to feature autistic actors playing autistic characters. Based on the 2015 documentary of the same name, the musical follows seven autistic teens in Ohio as they prepare for their first spring formal. But that wasn’t the only thing that made it a first.
The production was designed, from the start, to provide accessibility options that go well beyond the standard offerings at a Broadway stage. Headphones and light sensitive eye-glasses were provided in the front of house and the program highlighted a designated quiet space in the theater. The lighting was crafted to avoid being too bright, and the sound was designed to not reach an extreme decibel threshold.
It’s the type of theater work that hadn’t been seen on such a large scale before, and one that hasn’t readily been replicated since. Although How to Dance in Ohio closed in February, it provides a framework for what anti-ableism and equity work can do to enhance a production, developed for years by dedicated disability justice advocates.
“We hope it’s the beginning of more amazing representation, opening the door to different communities who have historically been marginalized on Broadway,” said Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt, autistic creative consultant for the production.
Rigelhaupt joined the show in 2021 and assisted with creative decisions from casting to script consultation, ensuring the show’s depiction of people with autism avoided harmful or incorrect stereotypes. The show’s prologue addresses this, in part, through a direct to audience address where one of the actors jokingly shares, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” Rigelhaupt was connected to the project through CO/LAB, a New York based theater non-profit.
Along with offering theater classes for adults with disabilities, CO/LAB also offers disability inclusivity training through their Sharing the Stage program. Their team was brought on early in the production process for How to Dance in Ohio — there for the first workshops — as well as the first production at Syracuse Stage in upstate New York.
“Everybody had a shared language of ‘how are we talking about disability’, and making sure that they were there to support the cast members, the technicians, and also the audience,” said Abby Shreer, a teaching artist at CO/LAB.
That poses a contrast to how accessibility offerings are traditionally thought of within the arts and live performance spaces, as a checkbox to mark off.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, often shortened to ADA, is the civil rights law that places legal requirements on theaters to provide certain accommodations for individuals with disabilities. These requirements are centered around three main areas: accessible seating, assistive listening devices (for individuals who are blind or low vision), and auxiliary aids, such as closed captioning.
All Broadway theaters meet some combination of these requirements, but that’s often where they end. When accessibility requirements resemble a checklist, that’s what they often become. People’s needs, however, don’t fit neatly into those checkboxes.
“Accessibility is something that has to be planned for,” said Ashley J. Hicks, manager of member experience and access at A.R.T/New York. “It has to be proactive rather than reactive.”
As a disabled artist, Hicks works to advance an equity framework through A.R.T/New York, an arts service organization that works with New York City’s non-profit theaters.
“When there’s a focus on anti-ableism and equity, the conversation becomes larger. It becomes more than just a box to check off,” Hicks said.
A.R.T/New York accomplishes that work through their disability equity series, which consists of workshops and roundtable discussions with member organizations, led by artists with disabilities, that center on the creation of inclusive theater spaces.
A.R.T/New York also focuses on the formation of sustainable accessibility practices. Shows will often, for example, offer a single performance with an ASL interpreter, but when they only offer one performance with an interpreter without outreach efforts, it doesn’t end up being accessible in practice.
“If you build it, they won’t come,” said Beth Prevor, executive director of Hands On and member of A.R.T/New York’s Disability Advisory Council. “You have to build that kind of trust within the community.”
Staff training requires similar consistency. Implemented policies can only go so far if the staff carrying them out doesn’t understand their purpose. CO/LAB’s Sharing the Stage program focuses heavily on that process, working to make accessibility policies as approachable as possible.
“Take your time and presume competence,” said Danielle Coles, a longtime CO/LAB actor and leader who serves as a co-facilitator for the Sharing the Stage program. “We’re human, we all make mistakes.”
Complicating all of this is cost. Services like an ASL interpreter and staff training, although highly variable per production, can cost thousands. Many theaters, which have historically struggled to turn a profit, are running on tighter budgets since the pandemic. CO/LAB and A.R.T/New York continues to encourage theater creatives to do what they can.
“No one can do everything, do something,” said David E. Shane, CO/LAB’s executive director. “Don’t let the fact that you’re afraid you can’t achieve all those goals keep you from achieving any of them.”
It’s an approach that was taken to heart by Theo Kolbrener, the assistant director and accessibility coordinator for Missionary Woman, a new play that premiered at Brooklyn’s MITU580 in September. Taking their experience as a teaching artist and director at Adapt Community Network, a non-profit offering services for adults with disabilities, they pitched themselves as an accessibility coordinator.
“Early in the conversation, I was like, ‘these are things we should be considering budgeting for,’” Kolbrener said.
Because they started early, they were able to secure an ASL interpreter that worked around the cast’s movement in rehearsal, as well as a front-facing “accessibility doula” for audience members during performances.
Even when the Missionary Woman team wasn’t able to build the show to provide full sensory accessibility, they gave trigger warnings for specific light and sound effects in case audience members needed to step out. For those individuals, a team member gave them a summary of the scene so they didn’t miss out.
“It is very rare that having some sort of accessibility team will not be useful,” Kolbrener said.
It’s a way of thinking that can be seen in accessibility accommodations outside of theater. Take the curb cut effect, a cultural phenomenon where societal or structural changes designed to benefit one group often have universal benefits. It’s named after curb cuts, or dips in the sidewalk along street crossings, mandated by the ADA. Although designed initially for wheelchair accessibility, the sidewalk ramps have been used by many groups, including people pushing strollers, construction workers rolling equipment, and travelers rolling luggage, to name a few.
In theaters, that can look like the construction of a quiet room or space in the theater, like in How to Dance in Ohio. Even though it’s built for people with sensory needs, everyone could benefit from a designated cool off space. But more can be done.
“The innovation that happens in theater is unbelievable,” Shreer said. “How can we not be more creative, and use that same innovation, to make our spaces more accessible.”
Works like How to Dance in Ohio disrupt the status quo. A status quo that disability justice advocates have been working for decades to change.
There’s a disability justice concept, more a demand, core to How to Dance in Ohio and the work it represents, “nothing about us without us.” It’s a flashpoint in the ongoing effort to effect change and create an equitable theater space.
“There is this stereotype, considering how disabled individuals have either been treated or have been represented in theater historically, that it’s not a space for us,” Hicks said. “And it is.”
