CELEBRATING BARRIER-FREE THEATRE IN CARMEL-A WORLD GONE ROCKED!

By Angie Arlington

In March of 2022, Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation (CCPR) held its annual Barrier-Free Theatre performance in honor of Developmental Disability Awareness Month.

Barrier-free theatre is a form of drama therapy in which participants with and without disabilities work together to write and act in their own production. It empowers participants, increases self-confidence, and improves self-awareness. It also creates a positive, inclusive and creative environment.

Sally Bailey, a professor in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, and director of the Barrier-Free Theatre company, a partnership between the City of Manhattan Parks and Recreation program and the Kansas State University Theatre program, founded the program 30 years ago in Washington, D.C.

“That’s where I learned it, and Michelle Yadon, our predecessor here at CCPR, learned from Sally as well,” said Sara Fenster, the current director of the CCPR Barrier-Free Theatre.

Four seasons have come and gone since Yadon brought the program to CCPR’s Monon Community Center. This year, there were 10 actors. “We’ve had years with a few more and a few less,” Fenster noted. “We’re always looking to grow and accept new people into the process.”

The annual call-out rehearsal for all adults happens in August, when interested individuals come to see if the process and the group are right for them to commit to.

“The entire creative process takes around eight months to complete,” Fenster said. “Then, we begin brainstorming and improvising different characters and scenarios, conflicts, all kinds of elements of our story, and then we kind of narrow it down and come to a consensus about what our show is going to be about. It’s largely improv kind of character work and workshops. We do interviews with our characters. After all the improv, we write the show.”

Rehearsals for this year’s show started in January, with every week bringing in more and more sets and props and costume pieces. “We rehearsed an hour and a half each week,” said Fenster. “During tech week, which was the final week leading up to the shows, we incorporated the technical elements of lights, sound, and costume, and rehearsed every day.”

2022’s show was titled World Gone Rocked. “It was a very pandemic informed play,” Fenster said. “When we were brainstorming all of our topics, everything that we brought up was impacted somewhere in the last couple of years by the state of the world. So, we had all of these different conflicts in the play — the personal problems of struggling with career changes, with loss, being away from loved ones. All of these things are heightened and impacted by a pandemic.”

“Although ours was not a medical pandemic, it was [about] a group of musicians who had fallen under the trance of a phantom,” Fenster explained. “We had a great time with it. We had some people who felt very strongly about playing the antagonists this year. So we had this whole musical group and then the Phantom to have a taste of what it’s like to be the bad guy. This is a safe place to explore that side of yourself without doing any damage to anyone or anything.”

“2019 was my very first year with [Barrier-Free Theatre],” said actress Lily Thompson. “I played a grandma. Last year I played a good dragon, and this year I played the bad guy, Phantom Wolfgang Peter White. I loved the name Wolfgang from composer Mozart. Peter is the first name of the classical composer Tchaikovsky. And ‘White’ is from Snow White, my favorite Disney princess.”

“I was Jasmine,” actress Kelly Kaser shared enthusiastically. “She is my favorite princess. It’s my birthday in the play. I like being an actor.”

Interested adults should look for call-outs to be held in August of this year for 2023’s production.

You can also contact CCPR Inclusion Supervisor Kelvin Solares for more information at ksolares@carmelclayparks.com.

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