DUNEDIN, Fla. — There’s a non-profit theater group in Dunedin that’s giving families living with neurodiversity an opportunity to sing, dance and act on stage in front of the entire community.
“As a former professional theater actor in television and film, when I moved to Dunedin, I really wanted to bring some magic of musicals to the area, so we started teaching kids and doing full scale shows and this is when my daughter was in my stomach,” said Kirsten Stiff-Walker, founder of Progressive Arts Theater.
While raising her daughter, Carson, now age 14, Kirsten discovered that the theater world wasn’t readily available to everyone, like families living with neurodiversity.
WATCH Inclusivity takes center stage at Progressive Arts Theater in Dunedin
“Now, with Carson having Xia-Gibbs Syndrome over the years, I’ve realized that there needed to be something where everyone was included,” Kirsten said. “I wanted a place where all of those kids and teens and adults could thrive together, and that is what progressive arts has become.”
The non-profit teams up neurotypical and typical families on the same stage in the same production. It’s a safe place where siblings, like Robert and Ryder, can sing and dance together.
“My brother gets to have a great time here and every single time he comes here I get to see the joy on his face because he has a disability and it’s so much fun that I get to perform with him,” said big brother Robert.
Progressive Arts Theater will go out into the community and do up to 60 free shows a year.
Julianna Just joined the group as a little kid, and now she’s a young woman, still having just as much fun as ever.
“I was an autistic kid, yeah, I still have autism, and I always felt outcast wherever I went, but at Progressive Arts, I never felt outcast and I always felt included, like a family, and I’m so happy to still be in that family,” Just said.
Therapist Brooklyn Webb said it’s a proven fact that music is therapeutic. These performers will go on to apply what they learned on stage into their everyday lives.
“So we work on dancing, motor goals, we work on speech, singing, and theater is so wonderful because we do all that stuff,” Webb said.
Progressive Arts Theater has two upcoming shows: a July 4th celebration at the Dunedin VFW and Aladdin the Musical on July 18 at the Dunedin Community Center.
“Having people learn and grow and perform even better every single time that they get on a stage or in front of a microphone, it's literally like this golden moment where my heart just soars and I feel like the audience’s heart does as well,” Kirsten said.
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