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Hello, everybody, and welcome to Life in the Neurotypical Universe. And today we have a very special guest. We have Gina Simms. Gina and I had this great conversation before and some of the things she was doing just amazed the heck out of me. And I had to have her on the podcast and she was willing to join us. So Gina is a performer. She's a writer. And the part that really intrigued me is she's the creator of the Autism Theater. So, Gina, how did you get involved with autism and neurodiversity? And tell us about yourself and how it all fits together.
Okay. Hey, everyone. Like I said to my mom, Gina and Tim, thank you for that introduction. I got started with the whole neuro diversity field because of my sister. My sister on the autism spectrum. And she has taught me so much. I have learned so much from her. And I have done my best to teach her quite a bit as well. And I feel that there is so much to learn from the perspectives of people with autism and related conditions, especially because especially those who are limited verbally or who have been limited verbally, they have been listening and watching and observing. And I believe there's a special kind of wisdom that comes from that. And I've noticed that a lot of the children on the spectrum I have known personally come from a very pure perspective of the world, and they don't seem to get so enmeshed with whatever cultural narrative is popular at the time or worry so much about what other people think quite as much. They seem to have a very pure, unique perspective. So what I'm trying to do is create a world where children in special education or the children who are neurodiverse and the children who are mainstreamed or the children who are neurotic or equal, all are learning from each other, seeing each other as equals. So that's the world that the Autism Theater Project is working to create. And the theater part comes in because I've always been very, very passionate about storytelling since I was a little girl and I dreamed of writing a book or creating something about world peace. I just I had this idea in my mind and and my passion for storytelling became a passion for theater. When I started performing, when I was ten and I when I was ten, my sister was also diagnosed with autism. So that kind of happened at the same time. And always wanted to find a way to help autistic children express themselves through theatre. And I also wanted to really change the way the world sees autism and related conditions through theater and film. And the Autism Theater project does both of those.
And how how big is the gap between you and your sister age wise
Eight and a half years.
Okay. So she was like two, two and a half when she was diagnosed
somewhere in that general range. Mm hmm. Okay. Okay. So. So she was diagnosed quite, quite young. What what what led to the diagnosis? It's always interesting that parents are always wondering, you know, how. How should I have an idea if I should have my my child checked? And, you know, what kind of things? The other thing it's kind of interesting is, in general, females tend to get diagnosed later than males because, well, the crazy medical system seems to, you know, design all these things around how it shows up in males, not in females, though. It shows up usually a little differently in a lot of different conditions. You know, they see our bodies work a little different for each other. So do you do you remember I mean, obviously, this goes back you were pretty young at the time, but do you remember any of the kind of narrative around what what made your parents actually go and seek a diagnosis?
Parents actually noticed progression in her speech, lack of eye contact, fixation on objects. She would really stare at fans and love to just watch the fans and just a general withdrawal. My sister is naturally actually a very social person, even though she's not very verbal. She's like she is has limitations verbally. She's very social with her energy, very bubbly. And it seemed as if some kind of developmental shift was going on because she wasn't connecting with others the way she normally would.
Interesting. Interesting.
Wow. That's kind of different. Where there was actually a change or regression is I you know, I'm not by any means a expert on the the child area. I spend more time in the you know, in the adult area. But that's really not something I normally hear. It's more, you know, they just aren't advancing at the rate they expect. So pretty interesting. So how verbal is she? And you say she's not very verbal.
How is she able to communicate?
Well, she has done a lot better. She is able to express what she wants. She's very good at asking for what she wants. She has struggled in the past with asking for what she needs when it comes to, say, expressing pain. But she thinks to her therapist she has gotten better with that. So now she's just pretty much the most part able to express pain. She sometimes she still needs some prompting,
sometimes if, say, a stomach hurts her head or she's a little bit of prompting, but that's doing much better.
it makes me wonder. One of the things that is I know if I say common, but you know, not uncommon either with autistic individuals is a reduced sensitivity to pain. You don't even notice that something that you should be in pain over a I would say stereotype is the kid standing out in a pair of shorts in the middle of the winter or in snow up to their knees and not thinking anything of it. It's just perfectly fine to them. And so I wonder if it's just doesn't even really notice that there is something that she should be mentioning because, like you say, if it's something she wants. So she obviously, you know, knows it, she has no problem. What you know about that? Well, she oftentimes would noticeably be experiencing pain because of how she was acting on set now, but she would be reluctant to put words to it. But thanks to therapy, especially over the past
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year, year and a half, she has gone to the point where she's able to express so and that's also led to fewer meltdowns or,
uh, I guess, very anxious, anxiously emotional behaviors or states because she's better able to express the pain and I think also better able to handle it sensory wise. But I do what you're saying does remind me of how when my sister was very little
before she was diagnosed, she did get burned because she put her hand on an electric light like a glass on top of an electric fireplace that could turn on with a light switch. But there was no warning or anything
putting a warning, but the light switch away so she could turn on a light switch and put her hand against the glass and a little too long did too.
seemed like it took a little while for her to register. Oh, I'm being burned as opposed to feeling it right away. So I would say in that sense, I see how
her sensory system may lag, I guess.
Gotcha. So how involved obviously she was the impetus for you to start doing the autism theater stuff? How involved is she it does she participate regularly? Is she involved with it? if so, has that seemed to be something that's been helping her?
She has been involved with classes in the past. Right now, our focus is mainly production. E in autistic adults on this series is essentially this is online television series that we're creating in the past couple of years. But she has been in our classes before and I there was a time where she
be able to participate in group activities. And over the course of the class, I would see her become more comfortable along with the other children, of participating in the group activities, doing things like seeing their names, staying in a circle as opposed to running away things of that nature.
Well, now I want to ask you, because I'm not letting you get away with this one. So tell us about this production that you're doing. You can't just slip that in and not say more.
Yes, Yes, of course. The production is called The Voice Inside, and it is basically about teens, teens and young adults, mainly on the autism spectrum or with related conditions and how they were able to overcome challenges as they went through that that journey from high school to college or high school to the real world, basically from from being a young adult to a real functioning, full, fully fledged adult. And every episode is based on a true story. And the point of the voice inside is to say, look, there is a future for these children, no matter how much they may be struggling, whether they may be initially considered to be high functioning or not as high functioning or what struggling in special ed or acing it, you and everyone has their own individual challenges, but all of them can succeed and live happy, fulfilling lives. So that's our series. It's fictional in the sense that it is based on true stories and the script is written, so it's on its elementary and it's being created with bunch of people. Neurotypical and several people on the autism spectrum have joined us consultants and our co-writer, who I recently just did an interview with Matteo Esposito. He is on the spectrum. His story is the main inspiration for The voice inside, because the main character, Matt is inspired by Matteo, and every character on the spectrum is played by an actor on the spectrum.
You know, there's so much in in what you just said that I got to ask about it is like 100 questions in there. You know, first thing is what we've seen in the little bit that there has been in the media about autistic individuals and in the adult world, the Autism at Work movement started all with tech companies. And of course, we always see them portrayed as being these tech geeks. And, you know, either they're tech geeks or they have, you know, amazing mathematical skills or something, you know, in those kind of arenas. And here you're talking about autistic actors and sounding like they're they're like, you know, making a living, doing acting. They really have an autistic producer. I don't think a lot of people are familiar that autistic individuals can turn up in any job field possible. It's just like anybody else. I'm probably never going to be an actor. That's not I'm not cut out to be. But that doesn't mean that somebody else like me couldn't be a phenomenal actor. So tell me more. What's it like working with a whole bunch of autistic actors?
It's been very moving to see them relate to the material and and also and we put their own stories and personalities into the characters.
I would say there's so much for me to say.
just been beautiful to see the honesty, especially with which Zachary Haugland, who plays the main character Matt, the honesty with which he's been able to portray this character. Because what we we do with the voice inside is as well we inspire the audiences and the happy endings. We also show the realities of the difficulties associated with having this condition or even being a parent of someone on the spectrum or a sibling. You know, it's it's very real. And I would say one of the highlights of working on the series was when the main actor who was a bit concerned about how people would see him as a person when he would say, show a meltdown on screen or something like that. He was nervous about that. But then when we got on set and I mean, he he did his his his meltdown and everything, you know, people were applauding for the work that he was doing. And then he actually got a message from one of our extras saying and she was so inspired by his performance and he realized, wow, being honest about my experience on the spectrum or someone's experience on the spectrum, you know, the character's not entirely based on Zachary, the character's based on someone else. But anyway, just just being able to show that doesn't show weakness to other people in people are going to be able to understand where I'm coming from and not judge me so much, know? And that's that understanding is
what we want to inspire understanding for people of all abilities, not just autism. Every character is is a fully realized human being that people can empathize with.
I agree with you so much about the fact that being real, showing real life and real life sometimes has moments that a lot of people find embarrassing and they don't want to talk about. They don't want to mention those kinds of parts of life. But as you know, I talk to corporate audiences quite a bit. And when you're willing to share those things that other people aren't willing to share, I also talk about getting fired. And most people want to hide the fact if they've been fired a few times in their life. But it that's a real miss factor to it that wow this is this person is a human and really has experienced things like I've experienced and I almost think I know, at least for myself. Part of it is and I hate to almost put it this way, but I really don't care what they think. This was my life. This is what happened. And I haven't taken anywhere near the amount of acting stuff you have by any means. But one actor I did study a tiny bit with told me that the whole thing is deliver the line and shut up and let them deal with it. It's their problem to deal with the line. It's not your problem. And that has been, for me, a very good inspiration of you can tell that hard story about the challenge, the meltdown, the getting fired, the misinterpreting, the scenario or the what somebody said and the bad outcome from it. And I don't have to feel bad about it. I already lived it. I already experienced it once and people shouldn't feel bad about it either. They it's just expand their understanding of other people and other people's lives. But I think as a culture where can pretty much most cultures, we're taught to hide that kind of stuff and not expose it to the world. So, you know, phenomenal. I think you're absolutely phenomenal that in your series you really exposing these real life truths both to the good and in the bad, because as we all know, life is is not all, you know, cookies and and milk every night. You know, life sometimes is a little rough at times. So I love that. Oh, gosh, that is crazy. The other thing I like about what you you're you're doing is I've seen such a big challenge that parents of autistic children only get one side of the story. And what they get is the medical and the educational cultures version. And I'm not saying anything bad about them. I'm happy that there's a medical culture out there I go to and when I have things I need and I'm certainly glad I had an education and, you know, got to experience the educational culture, but unfortunately, both of them tend to look at autism and related type conditions as being deficit based of what you're not not what you are and what you can be. So the whole thing of showcasing autistic adults and what's possible and it doesn't matter, not everybody is going to be a computer scientist or a award winning actress. That's either actor that's autistic necessarily, but that doesn't mean that they can't have a fulfilling life and that that is so cool that you're you're doing a production that showing you and I guess the real life sides of both sides of yeah there's there's challenges but we all have challenges but their success is in there too. And autism doesn't take away the challenges and it doesn't take away the success. They're still both there. So that is so cool. So I guess what motivated you to start doing that?
Well, thank you. I'm glad you feel that way. I was motivated to do that
mainly by the events that happened in 2020 of one. Is nice success story. One is a tragedy. A success story was that I started homeschooling my sister, my my grandmother and my my father.
Yeah, we just felt that that was best for her. And as I was homeschooling her, you know, I really
I really came face to face with both the challenges and the the, I guess, the beauty in how she experiences the world. I had to really, really empathize with her. I really understand and understand her and start spending lots and lots of time with her. And, you know, we would work through different challenges and ultimately, at the end of the year, on New Year's Eve, I saw her in her room and she picked up a book and started reading it. And for my family, that's a big deal for a couple of reasons. One is, as you know, she was limited verbally. You know, she has some physical challenges just when it comes to the physical act of enunciating and speaking, you know. So suppose for my it was significant. She also wasn't the biggest lover of school, I would say does in her pre you know, she wants to play, she wants recess, you know, so to see her motivated to do something academic was very exciting that that no one else told her to do. And was also exciting because three years prior in 2017, when I had first started working with my sister on reading, she wasn't really reading out loud and she was she was embarrassed to speak in a way because she was afraid to say something incorrectly. we were struggling and I told myself, okay, one day she's going to read this book to me. And it was it was in her room that I said this to myself. So it was crazy to be in her room three years later and see it happening. And it just made me think, okay, you know, our victories in the in this community and autism community, the then you community, some of them may look very impressive to the outside world. Others may seem a little small to the outside world, but they may they may be big to us and some may happen very quickly. Like my sister learned to ride a bike way faster than I did, like in, I don't know, two weeks or something like that. Something crazy like that. Like really, really fast. Like a two wheeler. I took much longer to do that. I learned to read very fast compared to how long it took my sister to learn to read. But no matter how long it takes to achieve the goal, the the journey and the work associated
with achieving that goal is so valuable. And we just have to celebrate every victory. Big, big and small. You know? So long story short, I wanted to show those victories in the voice inside. And I also had concerns because my sister, she's about to turn 18 now. And at the time she was 15, 16 when I started working on The Voice inside our series. so I had some concerns about her becoming an adult and what that was going to look like.
I also noticed that not a lot of people were really talking about that, you know, so I wanted to bring that whole aspect of life to the to the mainstream, the fact that, okay, we need to talk about what happens when these children become adults. And unfortunately, the tragedy that happened was that a student I had when in one of my first drama workshops with the Autism Theater project years ago, name was Alejandro, and I found out that he had been murdered by his mother in May of 2020 here in Miami. And that was very heartbreaking, very shocking. And I was just thinking
was nonverbal, He was completely nonverbal. And I was just thinking, you know, there was there was so much potential inside of him that people didn't know not only because he was murdered and because he was nonverbal. We also because obviously in his
immediate family, for from what I've heard, there wasn't enough curiosity about about his his gifts and his potential and the kind of life he could live. I was also very shaken when I heard that his mother in court said, oh, he's in a better place now. And I was thinking, okay, now I am Christian. You know, I believe in heaven and things of that nature. But she said it as if he he he didn't really have a future here. And it was hard to take care of Alejandro on Earth. So I just sent him to heaven. I was thinking, well, what can we make people believe that there is a future for for these children here, whether they're cancer or low functioning, verbal or nonverbal, etc.. So basically, that's that's the long story as far as why I started working on the ways inside.
Wow. Wow. Yeah. I think people have a tendency to assume incorrectly more often than not, that if you can't speak, you're nonverbal. That means that you're not intelligent and the two are totally disconnected. I know a autistic gentleman down in Australia who was a Ph.D. and and had to, you know, defend his whole thesis and all that stuff in writing and on the blackboard and like that. But obviously if he can get a Ph.D., he is not a not intelligent person by any means. And I think there is that misconception that it's an intellectual problem and it's very much not. I mean, it's two completely things how smart you are and whether you can speak or not speak or are not necessarily related to each other.
And as you say, that they don't look at what's what's the potential for the person. You know, the assumption is, oh, because he can't speak, that makes a lot extra work. But that doesn't mean that there's not phenomenal potential in the person.
So, wow, that is a that is a heart touching story.
Yeah. I don't know how how do you process that one? I don't know how you, you know, knowing Alejandro, that must have been a challenging thing to just work through. And I could certainly see where it would motivate you to want to do something about it. So as far as the series, is it where is it showing up? Is it somewhere people can can can see it? Is it you know, what's going on with it? we just finished production for the first three episodes and now we're finishing up editing. We're getting ready to release a trailer and we will we will be releasing the trailer on YouTube. And what we are doing right now is doing private showings of the series at schools and organizations. So if you are interested in having a showing, you can be anywhere in the world really, and you can you can get in touch with me and my mom, Gina Autism Theater Project dot org or you can just contact us through our Web site and we would love to set up a showing. The episodes will be ready to be shown most likely by September, October, probably by the end of September.
Yes. So so we're doing private showings and we're raising funds to be able to do a public showing here in Miami at a theater, do a screening. And the plan is to partner with investors and production companies so that we can bring this to the public and try to market this to as large of an audience as possible. Yeah, I don't think people understand necessarily what the costs are involved in doing something like this. You know, it's not a minor undertaking to to make a real production and you're definitely investing a whole lot into it. So I'm sure that there is going to be people out there that want to help support it. I definitely, you know, would love to. And when you're ready, you know, stick it up on the website as being something of hear something of interest, you know, go contact Gina and find out how you can show it in your community. That would be that would be a wonderful thing to do.
Amazing. I mean, just amazing how you're you're using your gifts, you know, and I know you haven't talked very much about yourself. You know, we want to know more about Gina. So, you know, you're into theater. You know, obviously sounded like as you went through high school and such, you you pursued, you know, theater, but you didn't really tell us how you got from there to suddenly now being
into doing all this stuff. So fill in the gaps for us.
Sure. Sure. Yes, I did theater in high school. I went to an arts high school and then I went to Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh, where I studied musical theater. And so acting, singing and dancing. And it was there actually, that I learned how to put together productions because they they had something called Playground Week, which is a week when they would cancel all the classes and they would select ideas for shows. And my idea about a non-verbal girl and the dream world insight inside of her mind. So I was able to develop that play with the encouragement of my brother actually had autism and her brother passed away this year. Actually, my professor was with the Autism Theater Project, so I came knowing that I wanted to create productions about autism and and yeah, a professor actually gave us an opportunity to go to Italy and go to this European festival for theater academies with the major theater academies. And there I was able to bring a scene from the play and do it for people who had English as a second language. So it was cool to see them be able to relate to what it is that we were speaking about, even though we were, you know, English is our first language
now. So I graduated and after graduate, I graduated in 2019 and I got to win this competition called the National Society of Arts and Letters Drama Competition as an actor. And they ended up actually supporting quite a bit, supported my work as an individual performer, but especially with the Autism Theater project on this series, The Voice Inside. And I think I said then that I did a show in the fall of 2019 off-Broadway. I did this musical, and then I came home to Miami. I did some music and was getting ready to do another play in Miami. But then the pandemic happened and our homeschooling, my sister and I started working on this series and the voice inside, and I've done some film work since then, but my main focus has been developing the voice and said.
Wow, wow. All I could say is I didn't have the experience because I was already in a career. But getting out and starting your career at the beginning of the pandemic, what a what a challenging way to have to try and get going.
Yes, it was it was interesting. It was very eye opening. So much, so much too so much to learn and realize about the world in such a short period of time. But mean, it ended up in many ways being a blessing in disguise. I mean, ultimately, of course, the pandemic's quite a crazy tragedy. But
yes, in many ways it ended up being a blessing in disguise. know what I find interesting and I think you kind of, you know, typify it in what you just said is
I'm kind of guessing your family probably does this that would be my guess is you take whatever happens and you look at it and look at how can you how can you find the good that comes out of it. And it sounds like that, you know, with your sister, same kind of thing. And always looking at, okay, things go wrong, That's that's life. Things happen. But there's always something that you can find, a nugget. It gives you a redirection. There's there's something to learn out of it. And I actually think that that's one of the challenges that a lot of the I'm going to say, kids, I'm an old you know, I got gray hairs and stuff. So, you know, me kids like anybody under about 40 nowadays. But a lot of the people who are transitioning, whether it's the transition out of high school or transition out of college, depending upon what their academic career happens to be. And once
they get out, they they refer to it as falling off the cliff and they have no clue how to navigate the world. How do you go out and find a job? How do you go out and find somebody that will support you to do it? Whatever the venture is you want to do and I personally kind of sum it up too. When my generation, you were, I wouldn't say encouraged to fail. It's not like they set you up and said go out and fail. But on the other hand, you were encouraged to try what you wanted to try, and when it didn't work, you were encouraged to figure out what went wrong and change it. Try again if you want to try it again. And what I see happening way too often with autistic kids nowadays is they become so sheltered that we want to make sure that they never have anything that goes wrong. So we put them in all kinds of special education and we get them IEPs so that they never can, you know, fail in school classes and everything they do. So they never get to learn that experience of failing failing isn't failure. Failing is just a step of learning along the way to going where you want to go. Mm hmm. I don't know. What's your thoughts on that?
I think that's a great point of failure is is importance. Learn to embrace. Yes. And I'm glad that I seem like I have this, I guess, glass half full attitude. You know, I've had I've had to work on it. I've definitely had some times where coming out of college, I did feel like, oh, I'm falling off a cliff. We're like, Oh, it's over, you know? But I think as long even if you feel that way, I think as long as you just keep working towards something so that you can, you know, that you're not giving up on yourself, even if maybe you feel bad, you know, that you're continuing to work towards something, then eventually your attitude will catch up with what it is that you're doing and and then you'll be able to really go after the things that you want to go for when you able to both put in put in the work and also have confidence that things can work out somehow. And as far as how the fear of failure relates to people on the spectrum or children on the spectrum, I agree. I think that fear could be very paralyzing because if they don't
failing, then we're not going to really let them try. know, I have a little story about that. There's a gentleman I know has a autistic son and son's about, I guess about 12 now. But when I was talking with him a year or so ago, a kid was about 11. And I don't know how it came up. And it it came up that he wouldn't let his 11 year old son use the microwave. And his son is quite a low support. Brilliant kid, phenomenal. Happens to be in math, obviously is going to go on to a college education and end up with a career doing something just incredible, but wouldn't let him use the microwave. Now, his other son, a couple of years older, they let him use the microwave at a much younger age. And I asked him about, you know. Well, why don't you let him use the microwave? And his his answer was because I don't want him to burn himself. And all I could think of is I probably burn myself on crap in the microwave at least once or twice a month when you grab that plate and go, Oh, gosh, that thing is hot. I said, He used a potholder.
And I'm thinking, Is this poor kid who I'm sure is going to be college bound at some point, is going to be a freshman sitting in his his dorm room and not even able to eat up his ramen noodles because he's never had the experience of getting to live and find out that, you know, how else are we going to learn, Right? I mean, everything doesn't work out perfect the first time. That's why we practice, right? That's why you rehearse things, because they don't work perfect. The first time you got to keep trying it again and again until you get it down. Perfect. Now, now, I do have to say, I had a further conversation a year later or something, and he tells me now his his kid is using the microwave and is fairly successful and hasn't burned himself tremendously bad, no more than most of us do of grabbing that hot plate. But just the point of being of, you know, an 11 years old, most 11 year old, you use a microwave, you know, they're not particularly dangerous items. You know, don't put metal in there and, you know, don't don't heat something for, you know, 45 minutes and and life is pretty good. So, yeah, I think that whole learning to fail and maybe that also comes for you from the the whole idea of what you've learned in doing drama and and and acting in such because you go into that knowing that the first reading is not going to be a production show by any means at that point. The first reading is how the first reading usually go, right? It is kind of kind of rough and you have rehearsals, right? And or why do you have rehearsals? Because you know you're not going to get it right? Yeah, you got to keep practicing it and, you know, get everybody interacting the right way and things coming out all the right way. So, gosh, that'd be an interesting thing. When you were doing the, the, you know, drama classes and such, it makes me wonder does that kind of experience of of having, you know, the autistic kids learn to do where they go in? Do they start with the first reading and work their way through, too? Well, I imagine you you had them finally doing a at least a little skit or, you know, something that they ended up doing at the end and getting that experience of, no, it didn't go right. It didn't go right. It didn't go right. But we kept getting better. But it still didn't go right. But we kept getting better. And of course, you feel disappointed. I think we're all human. It's certainly okay to have goatees that stunk. I wish it came out better. like you say, though, you press on and you do it and it starts getting a little bit better and you feel better about it, then you don't just sit there and fall on the ground and say, That's it. I'm going to stay on the ground the rest of my life because I fell down once.
But I
really do wonder is it's kind of just a thing that you kind of top in the mind is the whole process of learning to to act to put on a production of some sort, whether it's for film or whether it's for live or however it's done, is really a process of repeated failure. Until you refine it well enough that you feel it's good enough to go out in front of the public.
I think I think there's a there's a whole educational program in that one of teaching individuals that failing isn't failing. Failing is actually education. There's many people who say the only way you can fail is to quit. And, you know, sort of that you're just learning, you're learning continually. You might not make improvement real fast for other people like your sister. She learned to ride a bicycle a lot faster than you did, but I am kind of guessing you can ride a bike these days. You know, that is that is so interesting. So when you were doing the drama classes part, I know kind of shifted where you where you're directions going and going more now to the whole production stuff. But what were the drama classes like? What was you know, what was the general outline of it. MM Well, we, we still do those, we're still doing those with the productions that are our main focus. But yes, the general outline of it is that we would get people to introduce themselves by standing in a circle and saying their name and then eventually get themselves to express themselves a little more by doing like a silly movement while saying their name or jumping up and down something like that. It children with kids would practice eye contact by doing this focus game. It's kind of like Zap, zap, zap, which is when you have to look at someone say, Zap and and kind of motioned your hand towards them. And then they have to say, zap and look at someone else, motion their hand towards that other person. And the whole idea is have eye contact and kind of practice, direct communication.
And we would discuss emotions. So I would have children come and first, you know, depending on the level that they're at,
would have them first, you know, recognize the emotion on my face or on a picture like, oh, this, this person looks happy, this person looks sad, and then a more advanced child or perhaps someone who's been in the program for a few classes or a few weeks would then be telling me how they felt about something that happened that day. Like, oh, I was I was upset when when Billy kissed me on the playground, you know, So something like that, you know.
And the main aspect of the class is when we would do what I call social scenes, which is based on the concept by this this expert named Carol Gray Social stories where we'll play in that they would experience in real life and then discuss how their actions affected the different characters and say they're at a supermarket, an imaginary supermarket, and one person, one student plays the mom and the other student plays the child and the away and go, the one that makes
the mom feel scared or angry or sad. And then we would discuss, okay, well, what can the child do instead to make the mom happy? And he could politely ask for the candy and, you know, maybe he's going to get it, maybe he's not. But at least the mom's not going to be scared and upset with him or anything like that. So that's basically how the classes go.
Interesting. Interesting. So did you ever introduce any singing portions into the class or were they always just a drama and and or acting, performing kind of pieces.
Mini drama to a song like If You're Happy and You Know It or something like that? I do sing
mainly in drama now. I actually have professional musicians who are on the spectrum they want to do music with so and as part of a band, along with those who who are neurotypical. So we, we are interested in doing more music and finding other musicians on the spectrum to work together with those more who aren't. And kind of like our
productions, like The Voice Inside, like our series, Everyone Works as Equals. So while have empathy for everyone that's involved in the production, you know, everybody has a unique challenges whether they're on the spectrum or whether they're neurotypical, we all work as equal. So the expectation is high level of professional work.
Well, yeah, One of the reasons I ask about the the singing portion is I used to speak in a very stereotype, typical autistic monotone manner where every word was on exactly the same note and every word was exactly the same length. And it was really, really boring to listen to me. And if you had to listen to a lecture I was giving, you were going to probably fall asleep even if you wanted to know about the subject. You know, it's just not very interesting to listen to somebody that sounds like that. And I had the opportunity to study with a absolutely amazing singing teacher once taught. There's a singing coach for some of the, you know, top stars that we would all know the names of. And one of the things he he told me along the way, I can't remember how many lessons in but you know a certain number of lessons and I studied with them a couple of years and it was he said to me, I'm going to teach you to put emotional sounds into every word that you say. did. And it has totally revolutionized my interaction with humanity. Now, the other autistics could care less. I mean, they, you know, the monotone worked fine for them. They really don't care. But unfortunately or maybe fortunately, I don't know. But most of the world is not autistic and a lot of the world judges what you're saying by processing the sound of how it sounds, the tonality, the melody in it, the pauses, the lag, all of those kind of things are the parts that transmit the emotion. So they process the emotion part first and then they go and process the words part based upon the emotional part that they had. So if the emotion comes across, that monotone, dull thing comes across like you're detached, like you're not very interested and very connected. So whatever it is you said, they take it through, well, they're just not very connected. And then they process the words based upon the, you know, assumption. You're not very into it and you may be phenomenally into it, but the signals you're giving and I think these are in things that are built into most humans and in autism, it tends to be one of those things. And a lot of autistics. Well, one of the definitions of autism is challenges in communication. And a lot of people think it's just verbal, nonverbal. But no, it's challenges in communication, as in the style of communication is different. So you interpret it differently than I mean it. So we have a challenge in communication, but people don't think of it as being that small a nuance. And I'm sure from your drama and experience and acting experience, you know that the emotion you give will change how the person interprets the words that you're saying.
Mm hmm.
So I am firmly convinced that there would be huge value in teaching autistic kids essentially how to sing. Because if you learn to sing now, all you have to do is hold the notes out not as long and put it in your speaking voice instead. now you have emotion in your speaking voice. Mm. Right. I mean, who are some of the best people at transmitting emotion singers and actors? And both of them use huge amounts of tonality and the pauses and just the length of the wording and all of that stuff will change the emotional feel.
So I'm just convinced that it would be an amazing thing. I know it's been an amazing thing for me. It's totally changed my interaction with the world and it's not that I can understand any better their emotion. I'm one of those people I need to be in your class learning about What does this mean? That means that they're happy that I need your class on, that. I stink at it. But when I'm talking to somebody now, they are feeling an emotional warmth that they never felt before because I was always in a monotone. So it was hard for them to have what for them, I guess I would describe as a human experience with me, because I wasn't putting in the signaling that was, you know, they they needed to feel that human experience. It's kind of like they were they were listening to a bad play. That's that's kind of like what it was like. And again, I learned it by being taught through singing technique and then just taking that exact same technique and just putting it into your speaking voice instead.
So cool. So that's why I ask you about it. With your background. You certainly have the elements from both sides of how do people react to communication and body movement and all of that kind of stuff from your acting side. But you also have the singing side of how do you put the emotional sounds into your voice.
So I think you have an amazing thing that you could do there. So I would say, please go forward, go do it. I would love to see you do it. I'd love to hear the results. I think it would be
phenomenal.
Great, great. Well, I'm actually going to be teaching a class, I believe, next week. So as I as I work on the lesson plan for that, I will see how we can incorporate singing. Yeah, I guess.
It's not a lot of singing that they have to learn, really. It's it's really just learning that in music. Of course, we have the notes telling us how long they should be and we also have the silent parts telling us that they're supposed to be silent parts in there and how long those should be also. And we also have what is the melody supposed to be? What pitch should each note? Yeah. So it's really those three things just moved over into your speaking. Except in speaking, it really doesn't matter what exactly the melody is, other than, you know, we don't want descending tone melody because if I'm talking to a Sandy tone melody, I sound like I'm depressed all the time. So we know I'm going down descending tone melody all the time. It's okay sometimes, but it's really just that all the way I was taught through was just really through scales, through singing scales, to getting used to the idea of, well, first the vocal control to develop the vocal chords enough that you can control getting the different pitches and sounds that you want. And then the other thing was just learning to mix it up some and use ascending melodies. Just don't use the exact same ascending melody every single time. Sometimes go up a couple notes and stay there for a bit and sometimes only go up maybe one note and then come back down a few. But it was all learned through just doing the normal scale vocal warm up type thing that you would do as a singer to teach the control of the vocal chords and of breathing, and obviously to go together and. Once you understand and have that control now it's real easy. yeah. And I say easy. It's not hard to do, but it's easy to forget to do it. And then you got to remind yourself to do it again. And eventually it just becomes your habit that, no, this is the way I speak nowadays. I don't speak like in a monotone, like I used to, or I just went on and ran all the words together and it was really, really boring. I now speak with, you know, the melody in my voice, I take pauses and I actually take the time to take a breath occasionally in there somewhere and have a pause. So it's not that they they need to learn to be phenomenal singers. It's really the singing is a what would you say? It's a means to get to the point that they understand and the vocal control and they get to hear themselves using a variety of pitch ranges, using a variety of more airy or more edgy or gritty or so the same tones that you would use when you're singing depending upon what you want.
once you have that, now it's just a matter of saying, okay, when you're speaking, here's what you need to do is I want you to go up on the next note and then stay on that note and then come down a couple and then let's go back up again. But they now have the ability to follow you because it scales. And then where else are you're going to learn how to do that kind of stuff, right? You got to, you know, sing scales in order to get that vocal control in that breath control. You can't you can't learn that. I don't I don't think I don't know. I'm not a singer by any means, but I don't think that somebody can throw a, you know, an opera piece in front of you. And you're going to learn the technique by studying an opera piece. You're going to learn the technique by studying the basics.
MM For sure.
So there you go. You have my, my. I hear what you say. My soapbox dissertation on applying locality vocal sound from singing into speaking. And I actually got certified as a coach in doing that from the same gentleman that I learned from. And it really is that that simple. And obviously with your background, you've done all those things already, you've just never sold anybody to use it in their speaking voice.
Yes, I think using singing helps for sure. Chant where we say, I can do it and we will do it in a soft voice, a loud voice. And I'm adding in certain feelings, like I'm said, I'm happy, you know, the able to pitch and it because is a great idea. So I will be doing that for sure. And that's your pitch changes makes a huge difference. My sister, well, she's very expressive, used to be more monotone and I can remember moments where she would say something and there would be like this light melody to what she was saying. And it kind of felt like she was more present in a way, you know, like she was really connected to what she was saying because she said it. She said hi with like a with a little in her voice instead of just high like like a memorized
routine. I need to say hi now. You know, it just felt spontaneous, right?
I what I was taught was every emotion has a sound to it and you only need to learn a few emotions to do really well in the business world. don't have to have all now to be an actor. You got to learn a whole lot more emotions. Obviously. But in the business world, there's a very few. One is learn the sound of happy, right? Because people like happy people. When your sister came in and she had the, you know, high that's happy, right? I mean, that's that's coming across is like, wow, she's excited, she's alive, she's happy. And it's actually a very simple sound to make. But nobody teaches you how to make the sound of happy. They just everybody assumes that you know, how to sound happy. And and the reality is, is a lot of particularly autistic people really most people don't really know how to sound happy. That's reality. But among autistic people, even more so. the sound of happy is real simple. You go up in pitch a little bit, you go a little bit faster, and you put a lot of melody in your voice because I'm just, Oh, happy to be talking with you today. Well, how hard is that to do once you learn to control your vocal chords so that you can make the different pitches in such happy is easy. So people who complain
that, oh, I can never get through an interview because, you know, they just don't relate to me and they rude. Well, good try going in and being happy for the first 30 seconds to be happy through the whole thing. I think you're on drugs if you're happy through the whole thing, but the first 30 seconds or so, it's like, yeah, I should be happy to be in here being interviewed with you. And like you say, it, it made all the difference with your sister when she said hi and actually some excitement in it.
Another one of those things that I think is so beneficial to learn is the sound of of thankful or grateful, right? I mean, it's good to be thankful or grateful for things. So people that, you know, like, I really appreciate what you did. So what does grateful sound like? You drop your tone down a little bit, you slow down and you takes a melody out. Now, not all of it don't go monotone, but you know, Jeez, Gina, I am so grateful that you've joined us and we've had this conversation. This has been wonderful and I appreciate it so much. Right. I mean, that's the sound of grateful. And how hard is it to teach somebody that? But the problem is nobody teaches it, including speech pathologists. They teach you the mechanics, but they don't teach you what you should sound like.
And I think that's where there's a big problem is you end up not knowing how to sound, to convey the emotion that is needed for the particular occasion, which is an actor. Of course, you learn to do that, right? I mean, you learn to tap into and project the appropriate emotion for whatever scene is in. The real life is really a lot of the same. We can't just go out and be however we want to feel all the time. That just doesn't really work real well. Oftentimes we've got to show an appropriate emotion for the particular situation,
but if you don't go to drama school, you don't go to singing school. Nobody ever teaches those things to you. So there you go. You know that that's my lead. I think you could build a phenomenal practice on teaching autistic kids how to put emotional sounds into their voice and fully fund your your complete project. Doing the voice with it.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Is there I way to incorporate that That's. That's with the actors on the voice inside the to teaching them how to use the voice and Jackie Hoagland who plays the lead he's actually a very voice actor which is great because he would work with the show is called The Voice Inside because you can hear well, I've already explained that. You can hear the inner thoughts of me. And so he would voice record and really pay attention to the details of how the certain intonation of his voice might have been a little bit off to him. So then he would you would try again, you know. So I think I think that's very valuable also to kind of get that whole vocal intonation thing down to is, in a way a science, a routine like, Oh, when I want to show that I'm happy, then I sound like this. If I'm a little more withdrawn than I sound like this. And if I'm grateful I take my time to show that I really mean what I'm saying, I'll all of those are some great tips.
Yeah. Yeah. And I would say I wasn't my invention. I just happened to go study with the right person, which I think that like a lot of us, you know, life is part of your effort, but it's also part of sometimes the right person shows up at the right time
and you have to take advantage of it. Like you said, with the pandemic, you could have said, Jesus is the worst thing in the world. But you looked at it and said, hey, you know, this is what I can get out of it. This is what I need now. This is what's in front of me. I can learn what I need and I can move forward. So I like to say that most people, opportunity always shows up when you are least prepared for it. And it's never dressed the way you think it's going to be dressed. So it shows up and it doesn't look anything like you want your opportunity to look like. I'm guessing the pandemic did not look like what you thought your opportunity for out of school was going to look like. But as you've told us, it became a phenomenal opportunity for you.
So everybody sort of beware. Watch out. Opportunities are going to show off when you're going to say, I'm too busy. I don't have time for it. And it will not at all look like what you think going to look like.
Sure.
Well, this is an absolutely wonderful I just absolutely love what you're doing. I am so looking forward to to seeing some of the voice inside. You know, when the trailer's ready, you got to definitely show me or send me a link so I can watch it. I definitely will publicize it as much as I can. And when you are ready to do those things, you'd mentioned it before, but just for the benefit of, you know, the listening audience who I'm sure will have interest, also, how can they best reach out to you and contact you if they want to know more, They want to know about the drama, things you're doing. So how if people, you know, want to find out more about what you're doing, how they can help support the voice with inside when it's going to actually be done, how they can go about having showings when it's available, the trailer learn about how you do the drama classes and such. Maybe that's something that they'd like to duplicate in their area, or maybe even better invite you out to do it for them in their. How would they contact you?
Yes, they can contact me at Gina at Autism Theater Project dot org. So Gina's in a autism theater project Board theater's t h e a t e r. You can learn more about us on our website. WW w dot org as in theater project dot org. And you can also contact us through the contact page on our website and just put in the subject line which you can say a victim go in blessing. And I would just like to connect and you can follow what it is that we're doing on Instagram at Autism Theater Project. That's the our handle on Instagram like this on Facebook, same autism theater project on YouTube saying autism theater project and on YouTube. We have actually quite a few interviews, podcast style interviews with different members of the autism community with very inspiring stories, some of which are already incorporated in our series The Voice Inside and Others, which we might incorporate later once we have the funding to do so. Yeah, I know the trailer is going to be posted on YouTube as well. Once we're finished with that, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Wonderful. Well, I will take all of those things and put them down in the show notes so people don't have to, you know, go forward, backwards and everything to get the spelling and everything right. And I and I'll even spell your name correctly