Surviving the education system with Asperger’s
Audiobook Listening Party
Tuesday, 28th of May 2024 – https://alternativevoicestheatrecompany.bandcamp.com/album/when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-a-cat
Don’t worry if you missed our listening party on the 28th of May, 2024. You can still access the Audiobook via the above link on Band Camp.
When we initially began my Developing Your Creative Practice project on June 28, 2022, neither the team nor I could have imagined the challenges we would face along the road to the finished product. Firstly, the grant did not reach our account until August 2022, therefore, we could not employ someone to edit the Audiobook Script until after that date, and neither could I pay the actors for their rehearsal time.
This did not deter us, and we began the project in earnest. I went to Amsterdam from July to September 2022 to work alongside the Cauldron Theatre Company to understand how to bring a product from an idea to a finished performance. To read more about this experience, please see my previous blog entitled The Cauldron Theatre Company – My fundraising Experience.
My key learnings from the initial part of the project are that:
1. Access should be built into the design of a project for a smoother sailing process.
2. Be prepared to change your original rehearsal schedule or workshop plan around needs or disasters.
3. If you lack skills in a certain field or area, you have to be prepared to go out and ask for the learning, seek mentorship, or go to observe the making of a production.
When I came back to the UK, alongside the appalling weather and the Death of the Queen, I discovered that we still had not found someone to edit the script for the audiobook and the actors were eager to begin the rehearsal process. We finally found the right candidate in December 2022, and she edited the book down to a manageable size so that the recording would be no longer than 4 hours, as 4 hours is quite a lot of audio. To her credit, she did this in only four weeks, whilst being pregnant and Dyslexic. What an amazing human!!!! Alongside this, in December 2022, I went to Los Angeles to learn about business, branding, and marketing from the amazing JT Foxx. To read fully about this experience, please see my blog entitled Mega Success Business and marketing conference. Travelling to Los Angeles with Autism.
The New Year came around, and the actors were incredibly excited to begin rehearsals. We rehearsed for three months over Microsoft Teams and Zoom to begin recording in April 2023. The idea was that we would be ready to go and have all of our sections down so that we could record the whole book in six days and be done and dusted with the project by the end of May 2023. Initially, we only anticipated that the Developing Your Creative practice project would take six months! Boy, were we wrong about that!
Suddenly, I began to get ill and experienced frightening symptoms, including extreme fatigue, dizziness, vomiting, internal bleeding, and loss of balance. It was an incredibly terrifying time for me, which entailed a lot of tests, Occupational health calls, Physiotherapy, and visits to various specialists and Doctors. This resulted in having to delegate a lot of the work to our producer. During this time frame, the building that we were recording in flooded twice due to the wet weather, and we had to use handheld microphones and find another building location to complete the recording.
Fast forward to December 2023 and just before Christmas, the producer played me the final edit. I was in tears because it was so beautiful and was well worth all of the graft and effort put in by the entire team, from the script editor to the actors and producer. It was the first time I had ever truly felt proud of how hard I had worked on a project. By this point, we were aware that my health concerns were caused by a bleeding stomach Ulcer and a hiatal hernia in my stomach. I was under the care of Gastroenterology, and the Ulcer was being treated with medication. The dizziness was caused by postural positioning vertigo, and the loss of blood and the extreme fatigue was caused by iron-deficient anaemia and the loss of blood. I spent my Christmas knowing that my beautiful Audiobook would be released in the New Year and that I was receiving the specialist care that I needed.
In May 2024, just under 2 years after the start of the Developing Your Creative Practice project, we released the Audiobook on Band Camp. https://alternativevoicestheatrecompany.bandcamp.com/album/when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-a-cat. Approximately 20 listeners logged in to join our listening party event, and many more interacted with our posts on our Facebook Page. One listener said, “It made it feel more real listening to Autistic voices narrating the story, and it highlighted the importance of care and support for the Neurodiverse community.” The actors enjoyed the experience and were pleased with the outcome of their hard work, each receiving a copy of the audio for their portfolios. They were also pleased to receive their paychecks.
The lessons I learnt from the latter part of the project were:
- Always allow time for illness or disaster and plan longer projects if need be.
- Always search for alternative venues in case things do not go according to plan.
- Always have Access riders for any new team member we work with so that we can understand access needs and how to support them best.
I was asked why I did not use AI to narrate the story and to save time with editing, and the answer to that is this. We wanted to use authentic Autistic voices and give them a platform to tell their stories as we are so often silenced by society and those who think they care for us. Using AI would have defeated the purpose of the project and denied our wonderful actors the chance to tell their stories and to share their Alternative Voices.
Written by Madeleine Levy Alternative Voices Theatre Company Founder
Signing off to have a well-deserved rest!