Dreamers Theater – – The uplifting performance documentary DREAMERS THEATER follows a group of cognitively challenged teens and young adults as they rehearse and stage the original musical, Assuming Assumptions. The play dramatizes the issues faced by individuals with special needs in the hopes of increasing awareness about this population and their capabilities. Members of this Richmond, Va.-based acting troupe live with a variety of developmental disabilities, including autism, Down’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome and other high-functioning disorders or differences. Off-stage, Ross Lipstock – the son of show creator Joan Babich Lipstock – lives with an autism spectrum disorder;on stage, he overcomes his social awkwardness and communication difficulties to portray young men dealing with the same challenges he navigates every day – employment, transportation woes, housing, relationships and more. Dreamers Theater formed in 2004 to extend the support when a developmentally disabled individual reaches adulthood. Today, the community-based theater enhances the lives of these young men and women in myriad ways. It enables them to showcase their artistic abilities, practice transferable life skills, build confidence, gain a higher level of independence and to socialize with, and serve as role models for, their peers. DREAMERS THEATER intercuts real-life stories together with similar scenes from the play: a young couple with Asperger’s syndrome go on a date, a young man with Down’s Syndrome works his shift at a local restaurant and another young man misses his bus stop and loses his way home.
airs 1/22 at 7 p.m.
