After seven months of practice, a Baltimore County theater program for disabled adults will perform "Snoopy! The Musical" May 6, according to The Baltimore Sun. The performers have a range of disabilities, from severe Down syndrome to high-functioning autism, and ranges of performing experience from none to 20 years.
"There's such a range of personalities here," Barb Thomas, director of the program, says. "Some people are shy. Some love the limelight. A lot of them can't quit talking."
Thomas began as a volunteer in the program, which has become one of the country's largest. She says an incident in her childhood informs her ongoing work with the program. She watched her father teach himself sign language so he could communicate with a new deaf friend and then he taught his daughter sign language. "That made an impression," she says, "this idea of reaching out to others in their language, not mine."
Parents of the 24 adults in the program have much praise for Thomas.
"Barb is wonderful," says Karl Froeb, the father of Ryan Froeb, a veteran of 12 shows. "She never talks down. She doesn't raise the bar of performance too high, but she doesn't set it artificially low, either. They grow."
Ryan Froeb, 28, who has Down syndrome, loves music but is generally shy, and Thomas says the performances "draw Ryan out of himself."
The Baltimore Sun now has video on its Web site so you can see clip of their past performance of "Hairspray."