‘Relaxed performance’ tones down theaters’ sensory stimulation

Stephanie Schulze had a challenge one night this year when she took to the stage as the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland” — playing a villain while lowering the volume.

Schulze, part of the cast at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills, had plenty of histrionics in her role, and she was used to giving her larynx a workout during the show. On March 26, though, the theater presented “Alice” to an audience with autism and other sensory or communication disorders. The lights went only halfway down, sounds were adjusted to be less jarring, and audience members were allowed to wander out of the theater and back in.

From an actor’s perspective, that meant a Queen of Hearts who simmered rather than raged.

“I just altered the volume rather than the intensity,” Schulze said. “It was more of a controlled anger rather than a loud, abrasive, yelling anger.”

“Alice,” which ran from March 19 to 29, marked a pair of breakthroughs for the Chance. It was the first children’s production for the theater, which opened in 1999.

Meanwhile, the March 26 show kicked off the Chance’s Relaxed Performance series, which adjusts lighting, sound and vocal projection to accommodate viewers who might struggle with a standard production.

This Friday, the Chance will host its second Relaxed Performance. “Fancy Nancy,” a musical based on the popular children’s books by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser, follows the title character — a fashionable young girl — as she makes do with being cast in a disappointing role in a community play.

Darryl Hovis, the theater’s co-education director, was encouraged by the response — from parents as much as children — to the relaxed “Alice” production.

“They greatly appreciated the opportunity to be able to bring their kids,” he said. “And sometimes, it’s more for the parents. They can relax, and they can experience something with their kids that they normally can’t.”

The Chance isn’t the only Orange County theater starting a modified performance program this year. The Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa has announced plans for “sensory-friendly” shows in its 2015-16 season, employing the same general accommodations used at the Chance.

“We have a fairly extensive range of accessibility programs in all of our performance genres, and we’re always looking for ways to improve those programs and reach more audiences and communities throughout Orange County,” Segerstrom President Terry Dwyer said. “We did some research and saw that some places across the country were just starting to do sensory-friendly performances, and we wanted to be a part of that.”

While it may be impossible to pinpoint the first theater ever to do sensory accommodations, the movement received media attention in 2011 when the Theatre Development Fund in New York started the Autism Theatre Initiative at a Broadway performance of “The Lion King.” Soon after, the Society of London Theatre joined with other groups to launch the Relaxed Performance Project, which cited the New York group as an inspiration.

The Autism Theatre Initiative now hosts special dates for about four productions a year, and not just for family musicals. One recent choice was “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a play about an autistic teenager.

Lisa Carling, the Theatre Development Fund’s director of accessibility programs, said her group launched the initiative in response to requests from community members, who noted that theaters already offered special shows for people who have visual or hearing impairments. After the “Lion King” performance, which drew a packed house, Carling got to communicating with families who had been ejected from other theaters because their children might have been singing or rocking back and forth.

“It was very heart-wrenching to read those descriptions,” she said.

The response to “The Lion King” assuaged any fears that Carling had. Some audience members, she said, got so into the show that they crowded the lobby to meet the actors.

“It was an overwhelming success,” Carling said. “It was unbelievably emotional for all of us involved; I would say more so for the families coming, because it was the first opportunity they had had to come and enjoy a Broadway show together as a family and not worry about atypical behavior. Their child or adult could just be himself or herself.”

If You Go

What: Relaxed Performance of “Fancy Nancy”

Where: Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills

When: 7 p.m. June 5

Cost: $20 to $25

Information: (714) 777-3033 or chancetheater.com