Arts for All

continued from page 24 everybody,” said Dan Miller, APTB’s associate community director, who plays the bouncy Easter Bunny who helps his new neighbor learn lessons about resilience.

“We were able to contour the show into a message that it’s OK to be grumpy and it doesn’t make you a bad person but then you can find something positive,” Shoenberger said.

For longtime APTB client and performer Amy Stone, “The Grumpy Bunny” is an opportunity to act in a lighthearted show after sharing her personal story onstage for more than a decade. Stone, now 28, has been performing with the organization since she was 15 and is one of the creative forces behind the beloved “Same Sky Project” where performers with disabilities share their stories. Stone made her debut working with Sweitzer to tell her story of living with cerebral palsy in her autobiographical one-woman show “How Far I’ve

Come.”

“I wanted to make sure people with disabilities were represented,” Stone said.

For Stone, playing a chicken in “The Grumpy Bunny” is an opportunity to leave behind the intensity of sharing her story on stage and dive into a fun but meaningful production for kids.

“It’s creative and it’s fun—and it’s also a break,” Stone said. “It’s nice to get a break from things like ‘Same Sky’ and just be a chicken and not have to tell my story every time.”

Watching the development of performers like Stone has been an exciting part of the job for APTB staff.

“To watch her grow over the years has really been amazing and she’s really come into her own and has this amazing strength about her,” Shoenberger said.

“The Grumpy Bunny” is a followup to APTB’s crowd-pleasing holiday production “The Snow Monster” using a temporary performance space in Village at Leesburg provided by Rappaport.

“The last weekend of ‘Snow Monster’ was completely packed. … I just saw the joy in the really young ones. This thing we’re doing here works. Holidays can be the perfect opportunity to bring a signature piece,” Sweitzer said.

Middleburg-based A Place to Be will be expanding its music therapy operations to a different space in VAL in coming months, with a grand opening scheduled for September.

“I give a lot of thanks to the Rappaport family. That they see the value in what we offer is amazing,” Sweitzer said.

And the donated space allows APTB to invite the public for free.

“Part of it is being able to give back to the community that has given us so much in a lot of ways and supported us for years,” Schoenberger said. n

A Place To Be’s “The Grumpy Bunny” runs Fridays March 24 and 31 at 7 p.m., Saturdays March 25 and April 1 at 2 p.m. and Sundays, March 26 and April 2 at 2 p.m. at Village at Leesburg, 1609 Village Market Boulevard, Suite 110 (look for the Easter Bunny). For more information, go to aplacetobeva.org.