Acting Lessons for Kids With Asperger Syndrome: Scripts, Prompts, and Visuals Improve AS Students’ Social Skills

Acting Lessons for Kids With Asperger Syndrome: Scripts, Prompts, and Visuals Improve AS Students’ Social Skills

Les Miserables

I'm having another flashback. I'm remembering the first time I saw Les Miserables.

It was an epic event. It began when my sister got the original Broadway soundtrack for her birthday. She listened to it over and over. I begged her to let me listen to it over and over. I was amazed. I was moved. I'd never heard anything like it. I think I was about 12.

We bought the piano vocal music. I learned the songs by heart and could sing and play them.

I read the book, the unabridged version. I think I read it a couple of times. I would come straight home from school, go to my room, and just digest that book. Some of the French history was lost on me, but the courage and goodness of the priest and the transformation of Jean Valjean and the drama of Fantine and the romance of Cosette and Marius and the suspense of the chase from Javert kept me awake long into the nights.

Then an amazing thing happened. Les Mis came to our home town on tour. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep.

Frabjous day, I saw the play. It was everything I could've wanted and more. It was over two hours, but every moment intoxicated me and by the end I was still begging for more. Watching this wonderful story played out with incredible music and beautiful staging was heaven for me. I think I cried just about the entire time.

I left determined to help the poor and needy. I think I was a better person.

I have seen the story played out several times since, including a high school production and concert versions on pbs and a film with Liam Neeson. It never ceases to move me.

I can't wait to see or sing it again.

dancing

I was doing an impromptu interpretive dance on Friday with one of my favorite 1st graders to a song about elephants. "Thanks for dancing with me!" I said to him as we finished. " You're welcome, that's the type of guy I am," he replied with a smile and a bow.

Parades

I'm having a memory of the first time I ever sang in a parade on a float. I was surrounded by my friends, and our group was called the Young Citizens of America! We wore red, white and blue, and we waved flags. I don't think I realized at the time quite how cool it was to roll down Constitution Ave on a float on July 4 in our nation's capital. I even got to sing a solo, albeit lip synching to a track of my voice. I hope that's not too scandalous. I guess a track was easier than miking a whole bunch of kiddos.

The reason I'm having this memory is because I just met the founder of the Dance Parade in New York City this week. We met through my friend Amber and got to know each other a little over some salsa. So I asked him, "can I be in the parade and stand in the middle of a float with dancers all around me singing big band music?" He had to think about that one. I will be interested to see how this will turn out; I'm sensing a little bit of synergy about to happen.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Today, one of my students read me a story about the first African-American woman in outer space. She'd also graduated from medical school and worked as a doctor in developing countries all over the world before deciding to go up into the blue. I wonder what she said she wanted to be when she was little.

When I was little, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, "a singer."