Towards a Theatre of Neurodiversity: Virtual Theatre and Disability During a Global Pandemic

Theatre in the lives of neurodiverse people and people with intellectual disabilities promotes opinion forming skills and self-advocacy. Through a series of Devised theatre workshops and live streamed performances, I look at how theatre is embodied knowledge and its own form of communication with various points of access that supports neurodiversity. I argue that Disability Theatre has its own rich history rooted in social justice movements, that deserves recognition in theatre and performance discourse. This research had to change and evolve due to the COVID-19 global pandemic and all workshops took place online, adding an entirely new level of urgency to our theatre making. Our virtual rehearsal rooms became a sacred space for us to build community during isolation. The components of this project are a reflection paper, a Virtual Theatre of Neurodiversity workbook for facilitators and artists with disabilities and accompanying video footage of some of the theatre we’ve created during the pandemic so far (which all can be viewed at: https://thatzshowbiz.com/teacher-guide/).