what is the red kite
the red kite project is a series of
classes and
and interactive multi-sensory theater
productions for children on the autism
spectrum these are called red kite
adventures rep light adventures are
multi-sensory interactive 30-minute
theatre installations for about 10
children at a time with a caregiver or a
parent music movement colorful
projections props and puppets are all
used they are designed for kids to
participate fully in any way they desire
they’re invited to move laugh talk sing
and interact with the artist
here’s a little film clip to give you an
idea of what a red kite adventure is
about this is red kite by the sea
the red kite project creates theatrical
adventures for children with autism
Chicago Children’s Theatre launched the
red kite initiative in order to meet the
needs of an often overlooked and
underserved community of children and
balance red kite by the sea is the third
and newest red kite production it offers
these special children an immersive
multi-sensory journey to the seashore
many parents of autistic children avoid
taking them to the theatre because
they’re not sure how their child will
react they worry that their son or
daughter may make too much noise or
won’t sit still or will bother other
pages red kite removes these concerns
and allows parents to relax for a bit
knowing that however their child behaves
it’s OK at red kite beach it’s ok if the
kids move around and wander through the
performance it’s ok if they make noise
or sing along it’s ok if they touch the
scenery or the puppets
in fact this is all encouraged
red kite creates a little world where
children can play in the waves dive deep
into the ocean and interact with the
singing sea creatures but it also
creates a little world where kids can
simply be themselves a little world that
celebrates the unique way each child
experiences and enjoys red kite by the
sea so a little bit about autism about
one in 68 children have been diagnosed
with autism
according to the CDC autism spectrum
disorder is a range of conditions
they’re characterized by challenges with
social skills repetitive behaviors
speech and nonverbal communication as
well as by unique strengths and
differences it is a spectrum no two
children on the spectrum are alike so
they say when you meet one person with
autism you’ve met one person with autism
in 1997 I was with Looking Glass Theater
and part of my job was to place teaching
artists in classrooms and about a dozen
Chicago Public Schools these artists
would work alongside of a classroom
teacher integrating arts into their
daily curriculum one of the schools that
I was looking to place artists into as a
school called Agassiz elementary school
Agassiz elementary school had a
self-contained autism classroom that had
about 12 children on the spectrum
ranging from verbal to nonverbal about 6
to 9 years old I was trying to find an
artist for that classroom and couldn’t
find any drama artists who felt that
they were qualified and had enough
experience with children with
disabilities to go into that classroom I
called to let the teacher Mary peasley
know that I wasn’t going to be able to
put anybody in her room she then said to
me please please please do not leave
these children without a teaching artist
in her classroom
drama can do so much for these children
so I felt really badly after that call
and decided that I would give it a try
myself so I showed up at Mary’s
classroom
and did a 30-minute drama class
throughout the class the children were
crying and screaming and pounding their
fists on the floor make it stop make it
stop and I kept going along with my
curriculum and then the class ended it
was a very long 30 minutes and when the
class was over Mary jumped up and said
that was fantastic and we’ll see you
next week
that was quite a surprise to me but I
was actually kind of thrilled to be
invited back and I started going on a
regular basis to that classroom the kids
started getting used to me and I got
used to them and we started all looking
forward to what was called drama time so
as I was spending much time with those
kids I started making up my own theater
games for them one of those games I made
up I’d used my then two-year-old
daughters pink princess wand and I made
up a game called with this magic wand so
I would say with this magic wand I’m a
ballerina and I would demonstrate being
a ballerina or I’m a bullfighter so I
didn’t have great expectations for my
class but I thought I would give it a
try I brought the wand in handed the
wand to a boy named Dave Daniel and
Daniel took the wand and said with this
magic wand I am Martha Washington and he
began to glide about the room very regal
II as Martha Washington I was quite
shocked and surprised very pleasantly he
then handed the wand over to a little
boy named Isaac Isaac took the wand and
kept saying wit dis magic wand with this
magic wand and he just could not come up
with anything
Daniel was sitting on the side and he
was whispering loudly Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln and I knew from that
moment on that I wanted to be in this
classroom more that these were
fascinating people I wanted to spend
more time with them
and I also learned about this principle
called presumed competence that it
wasn’t about focusing on the disability
about what these kids couldn’t do it was
about focusing on what they could do so
I then stayed on as an artist in
residence at Agassiz for about 13 years
so I then co-founded Chicago Children’s
Theater it was a very busy time in my
life
but I was continuing to go over to
Agassiz elementary school and continuing
to do drama time with these kids
creating lots of great programs with
them I was trying to find a way though
to really include them in the new work
that I was doing at Chicago Children’s
Theater and I was then at that time in
2006 the British Consulate invited me to
meet some theatre companies in the UK
and one of them was called oily carte
and oily karte creates multi-sensory
interactive productions profoundly
disabled children they are not specific
to autism but they work with kids with a
great range of disabilities so I went
and I did a summer intensive with them
and it was their director Tim Webb who
encouraged me to really combine the
experience that I had had at Agassiz
with the work that I was learning from
oily carte and hence the red kite
project was born and in Chicago so I
want to talk a little bit about the
successful ingredients for making
successful theatre intervention okay so
what is an intervention in autism an
intervention is an activity that
improves the quality of life for a
person with autism so first thing you
want to do is you want to make a
judgement free zone children with autism
can exhibit social behaviors that are
really antisocial and especially in an
unfamiliar environment or a setting or a
new experience so you’ll often see
flapping or biting running a myriad of
stress indicators so what we really want
to do is create a place where the
parents do not feel worried about being
judged these these behaviors make them
not want to go out and do anything in
public so at red kite we want to make
sure that nobody judges you before you
go we send you a pictorial story so it’s
a PDF or a video that shows the child
exactly what is going to happen before
they get there it’s who they’re going to
meet what they’re going to do what’s
expected of them that they can say yes
please or no thank you – any experience
that’s offered to them we want them to
participate but they’re never forced to
participate
we want to make sure that we know your
name so before you go a caregiver pre
registers the child and we find out a
lot about those children their likes
their dislikes things that will set off
any of that anxiety behavior so we are
ready for them when they come we know
their name we greet them with a song and
we also like to add an emotion to it so
we’ll say hello Elliott you’re looking
excited today throughout the whole
adventure we continue to encourage
Elliott to share with us how he’s
feeling and then if we have nonverbal
children we make sure that we include
them a lot of them use assistive devices
or we also give them picture boards so
they can use either one to let us know
how they’re doing we want to make sure
that you remember to breathe transitions
are very difficult for people with
autism so we really want to make sure
that we work on that pacing and
transitioning in a red kite adventure
you might do something really
high-energy like a simulated river
rafting ride or chasing butterflies or
caterpillars and then we want to make
sure that after that high level
excitement that we bring everything down
to a quiet place and so we’ll take the
time out and we’ll do some deep
breathing and we’ll say river rafting is
over and now it’s time to sit back down
and we’re going to then pet some baby
birds that have just hatched or we’ll be
rocking our baby stars so we want to
make sure that we’re constantly working
to modulate that behavior with them
another thing is you want to really make
sure that you have an agenda so here we
like to be creative with our agendas
this is really an itinerary of all the
activities this is from our production
of red kite brown box and right Pike
Brown box is a series of activities that
children are doing because they don’t
want to go to bed so here you can see
that these are night lights and as soon
as you come in you see them and as soon
as we complete an activity we turn off
that night light so the very top one is
the pillow fight and we’ll say pillow
fight is over now and we will turn off
the pillow fight light and then the
children can see that they have four
more activities to complete through the
adventure we want to make sure that we
stay present this is a sensory
experience it’s about enjoying and
touching the props and playful
interaction it’s about being with our
new friends at red kite it’s
about character or plot development it’s
really about staying in the moment and
if a child is having a lot of fun
petting a baby seal puppet then we’ll
let them continue to pet the baby seal
puppet or if somebody wants to hold on
to their night-night bear we let them
hold on to the props until they’re ready
to freely hand them over
nothing is ever forced and we’re always
gently encouraging them to continue
throughout the adventure we’ve had some
children come and they don’t even want
to enter the performance space they like
to just stay in the doorway so we’ll
bring the entire experience to them so
we’ll continue to bring over every
little song and musical instrument
whatever it takes they can enjoy the
whole show from there we’ve had parents
contact us afterwards and say my child
stayed in the doorway the whole time and
they loved it they went home and they
recounted the whole experience for their
family it’s very important that you hire
for the heart we have amazingly talented
actors and designers and stage managers
who work on red kite productions some of
them have even gone on to star on
Broadway in the last couple of years but
the main thing is is that we’re really
looking for big hearts we’re looking for
people who are incredibly kind and
generous and that they understand that
this work is about the children
it’s about being a friend it’s about
being a fun guide so what are the
rewards of red kite
first of all with the parents we do a
lot of surveying and we did this survey
with the Chicago Community Trust and we
found that before an adventure parents
were very nervous and they really were
expecting a lot of negative behaviors
from their children and what we found
post shows surveying is that it was
actually the positive behaviors that
were exhibited and the most highly
ranked one was joy so we see this every
time we take our red kite work out on
tour we also find that the parents are
really amazed that their child gets to
be enjoyed in a place where actually
they’ve never been before and they get
encouraged to go other places after this
Scobie is seven years old he just saw
our latest adventure the red kite
treasure adventure and afterwards he
told his mother he wanted to write a
review so this is the review he wrote
and he said a couple things here as the
show was like a fun play
date with friends who are just like me
and he also said theater is wonderful
and people deserve to get a chance to
experience it so a lot of people will
say to me don’t you find working with
people with disabilities depressing or
doesn’t it make you kind of sad and I
say no actually it’s the opposite for me
I find that this work brings me a lot of
joy and that these children have brought
so much into my life that it’s really
it’s been a wonderful intervention in my
life as well I also I always thought
that theatre was really about a
performer it was about the actor taking
center stage it was about great plays it
was about scenes and dramatic tension
and conflict and this work has really
shown me that it doesn’t have to be that
the theatre can be something else the
theatre can really be about the people
that it’s serving and that this work in
particular puts children with
disabilities center stage so I am now
looking forward to what is next for me
in this work and I’m not sure exactly
what it is but I know that I’m going to
continue working with children with
disabilities and I know that one way I’m
going to do it is with my red kite and
now I just want to share with you that
the title of red kite came from a song
written by my favorite artist Sufjan
Stevens it’s a song called sister and he
says I have a red kite I’ll put you
right in it I’ll show you the sky thank
you
[Applause]
the red kite project is a series of
classes and
and interactive multi-sensory theater
productions for children on the autism
spectrum these are called red kite
adventures rep light adventures are
multi-sensory interactive 30-minute
theatre installations for about 10
children at a time with a caregiver or a
parent music movement colorful
projections props and puppets are all
used they are designed for kids to
participate fully in any way they desire
they’re invited to move laugh talk sing
and interact with the artist
here’s a little film clip to give you an
idea of what a red kite adventure is
about this is red kite by the sea
the red kite project creates theatrical
adventures for children with autism
Chicago Children’s Theatre launched the
red kite initiative in order to meet the
needs of an often overlooked and
underserved community of children and
balance red kite by the sea is the third
and newest red kite production it offers
these special children an immersive
multi-sensory journey to the seashore
many parents of autistic children avoid
taking them to the theatre because
they’re not sure how their child will
react they worry that their son or
daughter may make too much noise or
won’t sit still or will bother other
pages red kite removes these concerns
and allows parents to relax for a bit
knowing that however their child behaves
it’s OK at red kite beach it’s ok if the
kids move around and wander through the
performance it’s ok if they make noise
or sing along it’s ok if they touch the
scenery or the puppets
in fact this is all encouraged
red kite creates a little world where
children can play in the waves dive deep
into the ocean and interact with the
singing sea creatures but it also
creates a little world where kids can
simply be themselves a little world that
celebrates the unique way each child
experiences and enjoys red kite by the
sea so a little bit about autism about
one in 68 children have been diagnosed
with autism
according to the CDC autism spectrum
disorder is a range of conditions
they’re characterized by challenges with
social skills repetitive behaviors
speech and nonverbal communication as
well as by unique strengths and
differences it is a spectrum no two
children on the spectrum are alike so
they say when you meet one person with
autism you’ve met one person with autism
in 1997 I was with Looking Glass Theater
and part of my job was to place teaching
artists in classrooms and about a dozen
Chicago Public Schools these artists
would work alongside of a classroom
teacher integrating arts into their
daily curriculum one of the schools that
I was looking to place artists into as a
school called Agassiz elementary school
Agassiz elementary school had a
self-contained autism classroom that had
about 12 children on the spectrum
ranging from verbal to nonverbal about 6
to 9 years old I was trying to find an
artist for that classroom and couldn’t
find any drama artists who felt that
they were qualified and had enough
experience with children with
disabilities to go into that classroom I
called to let the teacher Mary peasley
know that I wasn’t going to be able to
put anybody in her room she then said to
me please please please do not leave
these children without a teaching artist
in her classroom
drama can do so much for these children
so I felt really badly after that call
and decided that I would give it a try
myself so I showed up at Mary’s
classroom
and did a 30-minute drama class
throughout the class the children were
crying and screaming and pounding their
fists on the floor make it stop make it
stop and I kept going along with my
curriculum and then the class ended it
was a very long 30 minutes and when the
class was over Mary jumped up and said
that was fantastic and we’ll see you
next week
that was quite a surprise to me but I
was actually kind of thrilled to be
invited back and I started going on a
regular basis to that classroom the kids
started getting used to me and I got
used to them and we started all looking
forward to what was called drama time so
as I was spending much time with those
kids I started making up my own theater
games for them one of those games I made
up I’d used my then two-year-old
daughters pink princess wand and I made
up a game called with this magic wand so
I would say with this magic wand I’m a
ballerina and I would demonstrate being
a ballerina or I’m a bullfighter so I
didn’t have great expectations for my
class but I thought I would give it a
try I brought the wand in handed the
wand to a boy named Dave Daniel and
Daniel took the wand and said with this
magic wand I am Martha Washington and he
began to glide about the room very regal
II as Martha Washington I was quite
shocked and surprised very pleasantly he
then handed the wand over to a little
boy named Isaac Isaac took the wand and
kept saying wit dis magic wand with this
magic wand and he just could not come up
with anything
Daniel was sitting on the side and he
was whispering loudly Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln and I knew from that
moment on that I wanted to be in this
classroom more that these were
fascinating people I wanted to spend
more time with them
and I also learned about this principle
called presumed competence that it
wasn’t about focusing on the disability
about what these kids couldn’t do it was
about focusing on what they could do so
I then stayed on as an artist in
residence at Agassiz for about 13 years
so I then co-founded Chicago Children’s
Theater it was a very busy time in my
life
but I was continuing to go over to
Agassiz elementary school and continuing
to do drama time with these kids
creating lots of great programs with
them I was trying to find a way though
to really include them in the new work
that I was doing at Chicago Children’s
Theater and I was then at that time in
2006 the British Consulate invited me to
meet some theatre companies in the UK
and one of them was called oily carte
and oily karte creates multi-sensory
interactive productions profoundly
disabled children they are not specific
to autism but they work with kids with a
great range of disabilities so I went
and I did a summer intensive with them
and it was their director Tim Webb who
encouraged me to really combine the
experience that I had had at Agassiz
with the work that I was learning from
oily carte and hence the red kite
project was born and in Chicago so I
want to talk a little bit about the
successful ingredients for making
successful theatre intervention okay so
what is an intervention in autism an
intervention is an activity that
improves the quality of life for a
person with autism so first thing you
want to do is you want to make a
judgement free zone children with autism
can exhibit social behaviors that are
really antisocial and especially in an
unfamiliar environment or a setting or a
new experience so you’ll often see
flapping or biting running a myriad of
stress indicators so what we really want
to do is create a place where the
parents do not feel worried about being
judged these these behaviors make them
not want to go out and do anything in
public so at red kite we want to make
sure that nobody judges you before you
go we send you a pictorial story so it’s
a PDF or a video that shows the child
exactly what is going to happen before
they get there it’s who they’re going to
meet what they’re going to do what’s
expected of them that they can say yes
please or no thank you – any experience
that’s offered to them we want them to
participate but they’re never forced to
participate
we want to make sure that we know your
name so before you go a caregiver pre
registers the child and we find out a
lot about those children their likes
their dislikes things that will set off
any of that anxiety behavior so we are
ready for them when they come we know
their name we greet them with a song and
we also like to add an emotion to it so
we’ll say hello Elliott you’re looking
excited today throughout the whole
adventure we continue to encourage
Elliott to share with us how he’s
feeling and then if we have nonverbal
children we make sure that we include
them a lot of them use assistive devices
or we also give them picture boards so
they can use either one to let us know
how they’re doing we want to make sure
that you remember to breathe transitions
are very difficult for people with
autism so we really want to make sure
that we work on that pacing and
transitioning in a red kite adventure
you might do something really
high-energy like a simulated river
rafting ride or chasing butterflies or
caterpillars and then we want to make
sure that after that high level
excitement that we bring everything down
to a quiet place and so we’ll take the
time out and we’ll do some deep
breathing and we’ll say river rafting is
over and now it’s time to sit back down
and we’re going to then pet some baby
birds that have just hatched or we’ll be
rocking our baby stars so we want to
make sure that we’re constantly working
to modulate that behavior with them
another thing is you want to really make
sure that you have an agenda so here we
like to be creative with our agendas
this is really an itinerary of all the
activities this is from our production
of red kite brown box and right Pike
Brown box is a series of activities that
children are doing because they don’t
want to go to bed so here you can see
that these are night lights and as soon
as you come in you see them and as soon
as we complete an activity we turn off
that night light so the very top one is
the pillow fight and we’ll say pillow
fight is over now and we will turn off
the pillow fight light and then the
children can see that they have four
more activities to complete through the
adventure we want to make sure that we
stay present this is a sensory
experience it’s about enjoying and
touching the props and playful
interaction it’s about being with our
new friends at red kite it’s
about character or plot development it’s
really about staying in the moment and
if a child is having a lot of fun
petting a baby seal puppet then we’ll
let them continue to pet the baby seal
puppet or if somebody wants to hold on
to their night-night bear we let them
hold on to the props until they’re ready
to freely hand them over
nothing is ever forced and we’re always
gently encouraging them to continue
throughout the adventure we’ve had some
children come and they don’t even want
to enter the performance space they like
to just stay in the doorway so we’ll
bring the entire experience to them so
we’ll continue to bring over every
little song and musical instrument
whatever it takes they can enjoy the
whole show from there we’ve had parents
contact us afterwards and say my child
stayed in the doorway the whole time and
they loved it they went home and they
recounted the whole experience for their
family it’s very important that you hire
for the heart we have amazingly talented
actors and designers and stage managers
who work on red kite productions some of
them have even gone on to star on
Broadway in the last couple of years but
the main thing is is that we’re really
looking for big hearts we’re looking for
people who are incredibly kind and
generous and that they understand that
this work is about the children
it’s about being a friend it’s about
being a fun guide so what are the
rewards of red kite
first of all with the parents we do a
lot of surveying and we did this survey
with the Chicago Community Trust and we
found that before an adventure parents
were very nervous and they really were
expecting a lot of negative behaviors
from their children and what we found
post shows surveying is that it was
actually the positive behaviors that
were exhibited and the most highly
ranked one was joy so we see this every
time we take our red kite work out on
tour we also find that the parents are
really amazed that their child gets to
be enjoyed in a place where actually
they’ve never been before and they get
encouraged to go other places after this
Scobie is seven years old he just saw
our latest adventure the red kite
treasure adventure and afterwards he
told his mother he wanted to write a
review so this is the review he wrote
and he said a couple things here as the
show was like a fun play
date with friends who are just like me
and he also said theater is wonderful
and people deserve to get a chance to
experience it so a lot of people will
say to me don’t you find working with
people with disabilities depressing or
doesn’t it make you kind of sad and I
say no actually it’s the opposite for me
I find that this work brings me a lot of
joy and that these children have brought
so much into my life that it’s really
it’s been a wonderful intervention in my
life as well I also I always thought
that theatre was really about a
performer it was about the actor taking
center stage it was about great plays it
was about scenes and dramatic tension
and conflict and this work has really
shown me that it doesn’t have to be that
the theatre can be something else the
theatre can really be about the people
that it’s serving and that this work in
particular puts children with
disabilities center stage so I am now
looking forward to what is next for me
in this work and I’m not sure exactly
what it is but I know that I’m going to
continue working with children with
disabilities and I know that one way I’m
going to do it is with my red kite and
now I just want to share with you that
the title of red kite came from a song
written by my favorite artist Sufjan
Stevens it’s a song called sister and he
says I have a red kite I’ll put you
right in it I’ll show you the sky thank
you
[Applause]
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