New Teaching Tools Make Drama Activities Accessible To Participants With Disabilities

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ANN ARBOR, Mich., April 3, 1996 -- Award-winning Wild Swan Theater announces the availability of Dramatically Able, a teacher's handbook and video tape that will help teachers and youth leaders make drama accessible to children and adolescents with disabilities. Based on three years of in-class work at fifteen Michigan schools serving disabled populations (1992-1995), Wild Swan has developed a wide range of creative and fun activities that may be led by special education and classroom teachers, therapists, drama teachers, youth leaders, and parents. This pioneering work will make drama available to many participants for the first time.

The drama games are designed to develop creativity and imagination while fostering communication skills and building self-esteem. They can be played in any kind of space and make use of simple but imaginative props that help to engage the participants. They are ideal for the classroom as well as for drama and youth groups. The instructional materials provide teachers with dozens of activities as well as guidance about adaptations for particular disabilities including deafness, blindness, mobility impairments, and developmental disabilities. They also suggest ways that teachers can build on the activities to serve the particular goals of their group. The materials are suitable for a range of ages from pre-school through high school with age appropriateness suggested for each activity.

Teachers and parents are equally enthusiastic about the positive results that Wild Swan's drama activities have provided for youngsters with disabilities. As Kathy Roglitz, social worker at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center, said of Wild Swan's work with a group of blind adolescents, "For me as a social worker, to watch the progress was most inspirational. For one parent, it was socialization of her child beyond her dreams."

Wild Swan Theater is one of the leading theaters for family audiences in the country and has fifteen years of experience making drama and theater accessible. Its innovative outreach programs for disabled youngsters are national models and have brought the company numerous awards, including eight years of support from very Special Arts/Michigan and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Michigan Council)for the Arts, Newman's Own, Inc., the Pistons-Palace Foundation, and the Upton Foundation.

The materials cost $52.50 and are designed to complement each other. The video tape shows groups of deaf, blind, developmentally disabled, and severely multiply-disabled participants engaged in drama game examples from the handbook. These examples give viewers opportunities to see the activities in action as well as to how they might adapt them for their own students. The handbook contains many additional activities.

For Information about Dramatically Able, please call Wild Swan Theater (v/tty), 313-995-0530. The video tape and accompanying handbook may be ordered by calling 800-621-5557.

CONTACT: Hilary Cohen of Wild Swan Theater, 313-995-0530