What Does Weather have to do with Autism?

Recently, Kelley Jo and I shared excerpts from “Ducks on the Moon: A Parent Meet Autism…A Play with Music.” We performed about half of it on a lovely Thanksgiving evening. We participated in a salon with wonderful poetry readings by two poets from “Listen To Dis Community Arts Organization” (http://www.listentodis.com/), as well as a recitation of Hymns in Danish.  Kathryn Ricketts (http://kathrynricketts.blogspot.ca/) and her research partner Terry Sefton offered a dance and cello performance as part of their “Stories of Windsor: Mapping and Mining Narratives of Place through Interdisciplinary Performance” based upon a story provided by our Kelley Jo. There was also some art work; truly a multi-genre arts-based evening.

We sought feedback from this artistic audience. I am starting to understand the iterative process of creating musicals or a play with music; at its heart is how the audience takes up the story—how it takes up the artography. Generally speaking, people spoke to the power of the play, the power of that story—and to the power of the musical lyrics. We know we need to continue to refine our lyrics, but several commented the lyrics were quite clever and appropriate—good feedback to get for our first performance!