Disclaimer:  This blog is solely and solely my personal thoughts and views and may partially or fully be subscribed by others in the play.

A street play competition for Special Educators and Therapists from Special Schools at an Inclusive Performing Arts Festival!!

Our school decided to register for it, when some of us evinced an interest to enact a street play at this competition.

Personally for me,

Do I know what a street play is? Ofcourse.

Have I seen it? Ofcourse, in movies 🙂

Have I been on stage to enact a play? Oh no!!

Have I seen stage plays? Yes, ofcourse.

Seen and not acted.. Aware and no stage experience.. Brilliant combination!!

Was I the only one with such an experience? Nope.. Quite some in our team of ‘street play actors’ were in the same boat. I am not alone!!

From the time of signing in, to the day of staging this play (on the topic of – Breaking Barriers: Addressing Stigma Around Disabilities), a lot happened.

  • rehearsal, rehearsal and more rehearsal – some online and some offline
  • forgetting dialogues and trying to figure out what to say instead
  • standing in front of an ‘imagined’ mike and going blank; and then saying another dialogue that is close enough to what we were to say 🙂
  • laughter and giggles for reasons known to everyone or known only to our own self
  • NOT having the thought or ‘Why did I sign for this?’
  • enjoying every gaffe and everytime improving on dialogue delivery
  • giving a pep talk to each other from time to time
  • having quite some ‘grrrrrr’ moments and some ‘wowwwwwww’ moments
  • having the thought of ‘what goes around comes around’ – when the visual of what all we say to all our school children when they rehearse for staging a play on our annual day.. Can’t but smile at the thought of what some children may ask, if they had seen us rehearse – “Ma’am, you also forget dialogues? Ma’am, teachers also get anxious? Ma’am, it’s ok, go give your best. Participation is important, not winning or losing 🙂

We modeled amongst ourselves what we tell our children – forgetting dialogues – thats ok.. replace with a closer meaning one – thats ok.. feeling anxious – thats ok.. feel like smiling – thats ok.. going blank – thats ok.. recovering from that blank state takes a few seconds – thats ok… everything is ok – Just go give your best..

This ‘everything is ok’ statement really helped – anxiety, going blank, recovery from the blank state taking some time, forgetting dialogues etc etc etc were part of the journey as much as recalling dialogues, delivering it with gestures, fun, laughter and giggles were..

Being on stage is being in the limelight, be it an ‘imagined’ stage or a real one. Stage means audience.. audience means claps and noise and some tsk tsk.. claps, noise, tsk tsk send across vibes.. vibes are energy givers or takers.. ahhh!!! so much to the stage – we all love drama and being in it but the price is sometimes too heavy to pay (no pun intended).

Finally, the day of enacting the street play dawned. Oof, despite the fact that most of us were taking that first baby step to a play format, there was loads and tons of excitement in the air; and that was such a great charge.. in addition, were the wishes from all colleagues which ensured that the charge remained high at all times.

It is amazing how as human beings, we think on our feet and rise up to the situations that come our way. It is equally wonderful how sometimes we are so receptive to changes that we have to implement, with just a few minutes to spare. I guess the thought of what we need to change runs in the back of our mind in those few minutes; and at the time when we have to do it, we do it.

If the few minutes to the run up of being on stage fired many a nerve (both the excited ones and the nervous ones), the minutes after enacting the play relievingly settles the ones that were fired and releases that much much needed dopamine – that feeling of ‘WE DID IT!!’ Whoa!!!

As we watched other special schools enacting their plays, it was many moments of feeling a sense of oneness in passion, commitment,  working towards a purpose etc etc etc. So much of collaborative effort!!! The most lingering thought was one of  – while this maybe a competition, we are all winners.

Two statements made by a couple of the guests / judges were powerful and  struck a resonating chord.

  1. Awareness, Advocacy and Acceptance of individuals with neurodiverse needs builds an inclusive society.
  2.  Unsolicited help is an obstacle for their growth.

The staging of this street play is an experience that brought evidence to how we can change in our thinking – from the tad anxious and nervous bunch we were before we got on to stage, we walked out thinking how we can stage such plays in other spaces  – to bring Awareness of Neurodiversity, Acceptance and Inclusion.

‘We are the change’..

NOTE: ‘Our school’ is Brindavan Education Trust, Bengaluru – we work with children and young adults with diverse learning needs.

Advaita – An Inclusive Performing Arts Festival was organised by Mitra for Life.