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Review: A Play Produced By People With Disabilities Breaks Down Barriers

by Beth

Anja Herrman (at age 9) and her dad

Anja Herrman at age nine with her dad

Remember the 9-year-old who wrote a post here for Valentine’s Day years ago about how much she loves her Dad? Anja is a teenager now, and she’s back with us as a guest blogger.

by Anja Herrman

Last month I went to review and to watch a show called Six Stories Up in Climate Change. This show was put on by a unique theater group called Tellin’ Tales, whose mission is to “shatter barriers between the disabled and non-disabled worlds” by bringing together children and adults from both communities to share their stories on stage. From the Tellin’ Tales web site:

“Tellin’ Tales exists to create a bridge between children and adults with disabilities and those without disabilities through the nurturing and innovative performances of people’s personal stories. This is achieved through mentoring and collaboration. A key goal is to bring together diverse populations all the while helping them to recognize commonalities and build a strong sense of community in Chicago.”

“Six Stories Up in Climate Change” was a fictional story about six kids working to save the planet in two parallel worlds: A fantasy world ruled by an evil, destructive raven (my personal favorite character because she’s so ruthless) and our world, where a greedy developer is looking to build a complex on rare forest in Alaska. The protagonists had to rebuild the climate totem pole before the raven took over the world and the developer built the complex.

The show had some humorous bits and I appreciated that children directed and starred in the production. As a young theater critic, I did make the following notes:

  1. Why only cover environmental climate change? In the world of climate and disability there are many other climate topics that I would have like to have seen from a disability perspective such as political climate, accessibility in the world climate, equality climate and so on.
  2. I didn’t see personal stories from every kid. Considering that TT’s mission is to “break down the barriers between disabled and non-disabled worlds through personal story” I thought it was interesting that only 2 of the kids fulfilled that requirement.

Maybe I’ll sign up for the TT newsletter to keep up with future events. If one sounds interesting, I might try attending a show there again.


 

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  1. Mason Moton Says:

    November 19th, 2018 at 2:11 pm

    Can’t wait to learn more about tellin tales
    Thanks for the review