Volume 5 | Issue 5, 2021
CADA News and Information!
CADA Appearance on The Jeff Moyer Show
We’re People First: The Jeff Moyer Show is a family-friendly, accessible variety show featuring music, guests, call-ins, and other energetic audience involvement. Prolific host Jeff Moyer, who began going blind at the age of five, is a well-known international musician, songwriter, author, activist, and former NPR commentator, who has met life with resilience and gusto. His life and career are a history book of disability rights and advocacy. If you’re looking for uniquely insightful “feel good” entertainment, the Troubadour of Inclusion never disappoints.

Theatre on the Spectrum members make an appearance at 50.00. Check it out!
Last Friday Improv Night on Zoom
Call-Outs for a Cause was such a fun and successful event, we've decided to host an Improv Night + Fundraiser on the last Friday of EVERY MONTH! Will you join us?
Summer Camps!
Accessible Expressions Open Mic!
One-Act Play Festival
Spring Class Schedule
We offer professionally taught theatre classes that are geared toward anyone who wishes to improve their acting and writing skills. We welcome people of all abilities, backgrounds and experiences. Theatre is an art form that thrives in an atmosphere of inclusivity and acceptance of differences.
Artability -- a great new resource for creative arts and disability!
 “Creativity blooms in the absence of judgement.” Artability, Creative Arts and Disabilities is a collection of scholarly articles on the power of the arts to transcend the barriers that can come with disability. Covering visual arts, music, movement and drama, articles with titles such as “Painting With Blind Eyes,” Developing Animal-Assisted Arts Therapies…” and “Drama ad Empathy: Autism Universe” this book is a rich resource created for an international audience. It provides reviews of current research and practices for the classroom teacher, arts therapists, family members as well as professional art makers and teachers. The second half of the book presents profiles of individuals with disabilities and their inspiring encounters with art-making.

This book is available in print via amazon.com or for reading online here.
A poem from the back cover of Artability, Creative Arts and Disabilities
By Ramamoorthi Parasuram and Supraja Parasuraman, 2021 NotionPress.com

Artability                 Empathy is a verb
     Art is fun                catalytic art
Play with animals         therapy dogs
     Art is therapy                 bathe an elephant
Paint the sounds you hear       tactile painting
     Primordial sounds Ohm    mask and eye contact
Art is inclusion                facemask
     Paint your body          paint your face
Move, move your limbs     teletherapy
     Movement/dance         know your self
Blind with the camera           hear the sound and paint

CADA Student Spotlight: Griffin
Griffin has been with CADA since the very beginning. According to his mother, when he first started at Weathervane Playhouse, he sat in a rocking chair and really didn’t participate at all – and no one pushed him, they let him sit there until he was ready. By the next year at Balch Street Theatre, he was joining in and he was front and center, so it really helped to get him out of his shell.

"Griffin doesn’t like to be pushed much and I think CADA just lets him naturally get involved and they just accept everybody as they are. It’s not competitive. It’s not uncomfortable, you just kind of join in where you want to."

This most recent class session, Griffin found a new favorite exercise: "I like the Bus Stop, when actors come in one at a time and improvise talking. I like to be the grumpy man." He apparently plays quite a good grumpy old woman, too!

"Theatre is really fun for me. I made a lot of friends."

Griffin's mother, Jen Snider, says: "When we say Griffin does theatre, people expect big productions – I don’t think they understand this is an intimate group expressing emotions. But I think it’s more than theatre, I mean it’s really been like a social skills class. They’re teaching him things like taking turns, and they remind each other to slow down. It’s been a great experience beyond just theatre."
CADA Staff Spotlight: Tessa Gaffney
Since September of last year, Tessa Gaffney has been acting as Marketing Director for The Center for Applied Drama and Autism, all because she interviewed Wendy for The Akronist. She exists somewhere between the internet realm and her couch; Canva and Hootsuite are her best friends.  

Tessa just completed CADA's Teacher Training Workshop, Applied Drama for Students of All Abilities in March. She holds a B.A. from The University of Akron in Political Science with a minor in Theatre Arts, and recently completed coursework for her M.A. in Arts Administration. She is a proud company member of the Chameleon Village Theatre Collective and part of the administrative team for the new theatre consortium, Center for Applied Theater and Active Culture. She founded EraAir Theatre Company in 2014, in the hopes of revitalizing Akron’s WPA amphitheaters. This led to the discovery of and passion for site-specific theatre, creative placemaking, and drama therapy.

Tessa says: "I have loved theatre basically from the moment I knew it was a thing (shout out to Ms. Huber in fourth grade!) And this love has changed and grown as I have. At first, I saw its potential to tell stories that were often overlooked, its ability to be representative. Then, I became entranced in the way it can allow people to tell their own stories, that it can be created from nothing. Only now am I beginning to learn the ways in which theatre practices are therapeutic intrinsically. I hope to learn how to be an ethical conduit of this great power."

Tessa is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the art she adores and a mission she believes in, remotely. She is excited to learn more about creating accessibility, making theatre with marginalized communities, and virtual performances. She hopes to make CADA's public presence cohesive and consistent, introducing their incredible programs and services to an international audience through a variety of mediums. 
Thanks to all our corporate and individual sponsors who have contributed to our continuing success!


Tessa Gaffney 
Teresa McCormish Hurray 
Janet Juliano 
Danny Paparella  
Jordan Bryce James 
Rose Langstaff 
Shannon Costa Kotradi 
Saul Caplan

Jennifer Bozeka 
Jeannette Loretitsch 
Robert Keith 
Josh Gippin 
Shelly York 
Lysa Mulloy 
Shannon Uphold

Rachel Scalish
Samantha Honaker
Brittany Jackson
Lysa Mulloy
Georgianne Hudson Smith
Gregory Rees
Mary Kate & Fred Donnelly
Dominic Leone
Kathy Moran
Rick Woods
Pamela Warrick
Elsie Hammoud
Diana Wilson
Gonzalo Hidalgo
Marie Curry & Brant Lee
Logan Shamberger
Karen Magner
Colleen Foy
JL Dorrian
Nancy Archey 
Alice Altwies 
Mark Greer 
Dane Leasure 
DeAndre Hairston-Karim
Jamie Gellner 
Andrea Klein
Dean Coutris 
Laura Beahn McFalls

Michael Gatto 
Steve Karangis 
Heather Cross

Laurie Dolan
Michelle Herter
George and Jamie Coutris
Annie Gustley
Pooja Rajpal
Emily Durway
Bill Smith 
Maria Krenz Smith 
Stephen Dolan 
James Slowiak 
Larry Marks 
Tina Lattimer 
Paige Wilson




Laurie Dolan
Michelle Herter
George and Jamie Coutris
Annie Gustley
Pooja Rajpal
Emily Durway

Lauren Mathis 
Howard Parr 
Laura Yeager 
Mark Wilt 
Paige Giannetti

Russ Henley
Bhawna Sudhir
Mac Love
Kristin Kranz
Philip G Duke

Andrew Shahriari
Margo Snider
Bev Brown

Stephen Benjamin
Debbie & Steve Bugenske
John Ballard

Nancy & Leon Kranz
CADA Appreciates Your Support!
.5% of your online purchases at Amazon will be donated to the Center for Applied Drama and Autism. All you have to do is click on the link below that takes you directly to CADA's Smile.Amazon site. Smile.Amazon.com has all the same products and services as Amazon's regular page -- the difference is you will be giving a percentage of your purchase to CADA. It's an easy way to support us!
Center for Applied Drama & Autism | (866) 844 - 8327 | info@centerforada.org | centerforada.org

Theatre on the Spectrum is CADA's performance wing. For further information, please visit us at centerforada.org