the UNIFIED THEATER blog

Happy Thursday Everyone!

This week, “In the News” is featuring an article on MSNBC.com about Ryan Langston, a 6 year old boy, who is helping to pave the way for inclusion. Ryan is a model who, in this past year, has been featured in children’s clothing ads, including such stores as Nordstrom and Target.  Reporters Anne Thompson and Amber Payne comment by saying, “He’s the only child (in these ads)with Down syndrome, but he blends right in — and Target didn’t attempt to highlight his difference.” They follow up this statement with a quote from Ryan’s Dad that says, “The fact that they are not making a big deal - it’s ironic….It’s a big deal because they are not making a big deal about it.” Take a look at the article, and the video which features a day in Ryan’s life.
 

 http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/16/10168449-child-model-with-down-syndrome-inspires-thousands

          As advocates for inclusion, what do you guys think about this article? Do you think it’s a good thing that people are drawing attention to the fact that Ryan is a boy with Down Syndrome? Or do you think that highlighting his difference has taken away from the initial inclusion that was set in motion by Target? Let us know what you think!

Tune in next Thursday for more “IN THE NEWS”
 

This is Kaia, signing off!

Hey there UT Rockstars! Each week I’ll be bringing you news articles on topics we find interesting here at Unified Theater. This week, in honor of last Monday being MLK Day, we thought we’d share this article we found at MLive.com. The article, entitled “For diversity and inclusion to advance, everyone has to get ‘uncomfortable’…” journalist Dave Alexander reports on a speech given by International speaker and author Lenora Billings-Harris. Last Friday, Billings-Harris addressed the 16th Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast Friday at Muskegon Community College, in Muskegon, Michigan.

Ms. Billing-Harris gave a fantastic speech on the importance of inclusion. As you all know, we talk a lot about Inclusion at UT! The majority of her speech was based on the Southern African Proverb “Ubuntu”. The word “Ubuntu” translates to “I am what I am because of who we all are”. This idea turned into the platform for the new South African government by Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu.  “Ubuntu” is something that every Unified Theater participant can relate to. We are all who we are because of the diverse group of friends we become apart of through Unified Theater.

What Lenora Billings-Harris had to say about inclusion is so important. She encouraged people by saying “You’ve got to get out of your own way and lean into your discomforts”. She also reminded folks that, “people need to be willing to stretch themselves to meet people of difference — be it ethnic, gender, religious, geographic or sexual orientation.” But wait! What about people with disabilities? Lenora Billings-Harris made some excellent points in her MLK Day message, but she forgot that inclusion means including everybody!   Let’s not leave those with disabilities out of our dialogue on diversity.  

Click on the this link  http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/01/for_diversity_and_inclusion_to.html  to read the full article, and tell us what you think! We’d love to hear your thoughts!
 

Till next time!

Kaia

Today is Friday the 13th! A day, and a number considered ‘unlucky’ by most - not Tay Sway, she loves herself some lucky 13.  And like Taylor, we’re going to spin it on the positive and gush about some of the many reasons we think student leaders rock.  We could tell you 3,482 reasons.  But we’ll hold back and stick to 13…

1. They’re not afraid to mess up.  You’ve heard ‘em, all those quotes about ‘the only real failure in life is the failure to try’.  Well our student leaders don’t need a book of quotes to understand this one, they just do it.  They’re willing to test boundaries resulting in incredible successes (and learning experiences!).
2. They naturally discover abilities.  See above.  By trying things out they uncover amazing talents and abilities that had been hidden up until that point.  I can’t tell you how many parents come up after a show and say ‘I never imagined my child could…’.  Well, that new ‘can’ or ‘able’ is all because some creative, risk-taking student leader helped expand horizons.
3. They look great in orange .
4. They realize ‘perfect’ is overrated.  We’ll prefer fun, new, inclusive, zany, exciting, and messy any day over perfect.  As an advisor once said Unified Theater is ‘perfectly imperfect’.
5. They see ability first.  We’ve found that student leaders naturally see what’s possible and don’t get too bogged down in difficulties or obstacles.  They’re not naive or ignorant.  They just don’t let the negatives overshadow what’s possible!
6. They come up with awesome ideas.  That we kind of steal :) share with other student leaders.  Unified Theater is an organization by and for kids.  Almost all of the ideas in our handbook and training are ideas developed with the students themselves.
7. They don’t use the R-Word.
8. They keep us in the know.  We ask our student leaders what the best songs, hottest trends, and newest (and done-est) celeb couples are.  And they assure me that my orange sparkle nail-polish is totally professional (sorry Nana).
9. They advocate for inclusion in their schools.  Our small staff isn’t in schools at all times, no organization can be.  It’s our student leaders who mix up the lunch-tables, who ask why there are no kids with disabilities in band, and who notify their principal that a part of their school building isn’t fully accessible.
10. They use people first language.  Because they understand the language we use sets the tone for our expectations and actions.
11. They call us out. If they don’t like an idea, or something is confusing, they tell us.  They help us make things simple and effective for them and their UT groups.
12. They love swag. Nothing makes us happier than when we see student leaders sipping from a UT tumbler, in a UT t-shirt, wearing UT shades, holding a UT tote (and, like we said, they look great in orange).
13. They’re going to change the world.  We get sad when student leaders graduate from UT (really sad).  But then we remember that they’re going to rock the world. Our alumni are teachers, they’re making music for a cause, advocating for families dealing with incarceration, helping elect officials they believe in, interpreting for the deaf community, caring for the sick, performing for communities across the globe, and so much more.  We know we’ve got to let them fly!

Happy Friday the 13th from the UT team!

Click here to find out how you can become or support a Unified Theater student leader.

Student leaders at a fall 2011 Spotlight Summit.

Connor is one of the awesome Unified Theater Student Leaders at Simsbury High School (in Simsbury, CT)  We asked Connor to answer a few questions for our “Taking the Spotlight”… we’ll have someone  featured every week so check back for more!

• Unified Theater = UT: Describe Yourself in two words starting with U & T…

Upbeat and Thoughtful

• What’s something you never thought you could do and then were able to do it?

Get up on stage and sing in front of hundreds of people…and not pass out ;)

• What’s your favorite thing to do (besides being a Unified Theater Student Leader, obviously)?

I love playing hockey and having a good time with my friends, whether it be just hanging or going out I just like to have fun.

• Dream job? Career aspiration?

My dream job would to be a professional musician, but along with that I want to be involved with people who have special needs as a job or volunteer work.

• Your favorite Unified Theater memory/moment/element?

My favorite is probably being part of the tenth anniversary for Unified Theater, or my schools first Unified Performance where amazingly everything came together and seeing the happiness and the feeling of accomplishment my friends felt, along with the happy tears of the onlooking parents.

This weekend I was doing some cleaning and organizing.  I came across some old journals and sketchbooks.  When I was younger, I used to love to write little storybooks and illustrate them (although I’m a terrible artist…).  I came across a book I must have written in the 3rd or 4th grade called ‘Miss Molly’.  It was a story about a girl who lived on a farm and rode horses with her friend Jake (whom she (obviously) had a crush on).

(Again, so not an artist.)

Here’s the interesting part.  Molly, as you can see in the pictures, used a wheelchair.  But nowhere in the story did I mention it.  She was just a girl with a horse and a crush.  At one point I wrote that she ‘hung (the horse) Blackie’s food on her armrest’ and that ‘Jake lifted her onto the horse’.  But, besides those little accommodations, I never explicitly mentioned her having a disability.

While I’d like to say that starting Unified Theater came from a deep thought process around disability and understanding.  My reality, shaped by my cousin Kelsey, was that having a disability was just another ‘thing’ you happened to have.  Like brown hair, or being tall.  Including people with disabilities in theater, or anything, was just how I was raised.  It wasn’t particularly difficult or noble, it was just something you did.

Not everyone is lucky enough to experience disability at a young age - and develop that level of comfort, ease, understanding, and natural interaction that comes from those relationships.  But, it’s our hope that by bringing Unified Theater to middle and high school students, we’ll redefine their reality.  We’ll help create that understanding, and develop young people who recognize disability is just something one happens to have, not a definition of who they are entirely.

UT ♥

Micaela

“The stars are all out at Lyman Hall High School tonight”

With those words, Wallingford’s Lyman Hall High School kicked off their 2nd Annual Unified Theater production, and let me tell you…it was AWESOME!!! They might as well have rolled out the red carpet for the skits I saw performed under their theme of Hollywood! I saw a brilliant “Celebrity Thumb War Face Off” Between Selena Gomez and Angelina Jolie, a Murder Mystery, and a bunch of UT Penguins to name a few skits. One of the highlights of the evening was when Unified Theater participant Karen Grego took center stage to read a poem she had written about what Unified Theater has meant to her. Check it out!

“Why do we shine?

We Shine because we are special

Because we are unique

Because we are different

And nothing is going to stop us from accomplishing our goals

And reaching our opportunities

We are Strong!

We are one!

We are Unified!”

Beautiful poem Karen!

Congratulations to everyone at Lyman Hall on another amazing year of Unified Theater! Below you can see some pictures of these students in action!

SHINE ON!!

Kaia