Honoring Jimmy Smits, Matthew Goldstein, and BEAT

When he started at Brooklyn College in the late 70s, Jimmy Smits was an education major, but by the time he graduated in 1980, he had switched to theatre. When he wasn’t in class or rehearsing, one of his favorite pastimes was waiting in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square, hoping to score discount tickets to a show.

Thanks to TKTS, Smits got tickets to see famous Hispanic performers like Raúl Juliá and Priscilla Lopez. They inspired him as an actor and activist who identifies strongly with his Puerto Rican roots, and he hoped that one day he could be like them.

He succeeded. Smits rocketed to fame on TV series like L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, and he earned 12 Emmy nominations along the way. He even co-starred with Lopez in an off-Broadway play in 1983 and again in Broadway’s Anna in the Tropics in 2003.

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Inside Broadway’s first autism-friendly performance

In many ways, the October 2nd matinee of The Lion King was like any other performance. The theatre buzzed with families, people sang along with their favorite songs, and the actors gave it their all.

But this show was special. It was Broadway’s first “autism-friendly” performance and the debut of Theatre Development Fund’s Autism Theatre Initiative.

Overseen by TDF’s Accessibility Programs (TAP), the Autism Theatre Initiative creates a friendly, supportive theatre environment for children or adults with an autism spectrum disorder. Because people on the autism spectrum often have trouble adjusting to mainstream social situations, and because they often fidget or make noise, they typically can’t attend live performances. Loud sounds and bright lights might aggravate their symptoms, and their behavior might disturb performers or audience members.

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Queens Hindu Community Center iexperiences  Broadway for the first time.

See what happens when members of the Hindu Community Center in Queens go to see the Broadway revival of “Chicago.” (Part of TDF’s New Audiences for New York program.)  [Read more →]

How a deaf CUNY law student uses TDF’s program

Caitlin Parton is a law student at the City University of New York who spent her early twenties interning with a U.S. senator. She’s also a lifelong theatregoer, and the theatre is richer because of bright, passionate fans like her. Not that long ago, however, the theatre wasn’t very accommodating to Parton or the hundreds of audiences members like her.

Parton, 26, identifies as deaf, and though a cochlear implant gives her partial hearing, she still hears less than most people. When she was young, that seriously hindered her theatregoing.

“My mother is an actress and her father was a Broadway producer, so I grew up having an appreciation of the performing arts and attending Broadway performances with my mom,” she recalls. “I would enjoy them, but she would sit next to me and mouth what people were saying so that I could lip read when I missed it. We would watch movies of musicals before we would go to see the production, so I’d be familiar with it, but there would just be so much that I would be missing.”

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How can the theatre enhance your mind and your personal relationships? Just ask these students, teachers, and theatre professionals, who recently took part in Theatre Development Fund’s Open Doors Program.

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