DANIEL TOBIAS

“One of the most satisfying moments happened during the first weekend of Be Still Be Silent’s opening at SOOP Theatre in Pelham, NY. The parents of an autistic child approached me to tell me they appreciated how the autistic character was portrayed in both my writing and the actor who played him. They appreciated how realistic and compelling the portrayal was. and that we didn’t try to romanticize the experience of taking care of a child on the spectrum.” ~ Daniel Tobias

Workshop Performances at SOOP Theater took place April 22-24, 2022. www.sooptheatre.org

WHAT’S NEXT?

Be Still Be Silent is contracted to be produced Off-Broadway in 2023 in New York City. Stay tuned!

ALL ABOUT BE STILL BE SILENT

Be Still Be Silent is a two-act play about a young autistic boy whose ticket to the opening of a Broadway play is ripped up by the play’s director, and how this choice rips apart the director’s circle of friends.

The Origin

 In 2015, at the Beaumont Theater at the Lincoln Center, NYC, a boy reacted to the whipping scene in the King & I. He began to have a meltdown. As angry attendees boo'd and muttered at the disturbance, his mother attempted to pull him up the aisle and exit. The child, however, grabbed onto the armrests, and the meltdown escalated.

On stage, Kelvin Moon Loh could see everything. Impassioned, he went offstage and posted on Facebook a condemnation of audiences for not having more compassion for the mother in need. Kelvin was quickly hailed as a hero by autism advocates. And this is where my story begins.

After reading Kelvin’s article, I quickly posted a knee-jerk reaction defending the audience's right to a melt-down-free show. I mentioned that screaming in a dark theater of 1300 people is dangerous, one is entitled to a disturbance-free performance after paying $250 per ticket, and live theater must be respected. My tone was not the most sensitive, but in my view, I was simply articulating the views most of my New York City friends subscribe to.

I woke up the next day to a thousand strangers calling me an a$$hole. 

At that time I had no autistic people in my life. I was totally unaware of the plight of families with autistic members. Although I'm a published author, and I’d received criticism before, I'd never experienced this kind of vitriol from so many total strangers before. I could tell most of the people who responded had never attended a Broadway show by the way they said, "I hope most New Yorkers aren't as insensitive as this a$$hole." So everything in me wanted to double down and say, "Ya wanna bet?" Oooooh, I felt indignant! I spent a good two sleepless weeks debating whether or not I should retaliate.

Then...an old high-school friend (whom I hadn't talked to in decades) reached out to me privately and appealed to me to be more sensitive. Her mother was a costume maker. I recall their hallway was always filled with racks of clothing and fabric rolls. My old friend revealed she gave birth to an autistic son. She told me she and her son are shamed everywhere they go: public transportation, restaurants, libraries, and movie theaters. My post was just contributing to the noise that makes their lives more difficult. I used some hard binary rhetoric that failed to take their experiences into consideration. I recall she was a warm-hearted beautiful soul; the last thing I'd ever want to do was to be hurtful to her. So I took down the post and got to work.

I researched everything I could about autism: articles from a parent’s perspective as well as articles written by neurologists. I talked for a couple of hours with Kelvin Moon Loh at The West Bank Café and absorbed his initial perspective at the Beaumont Theater. I took my friend's autistic 8-year-old daughter to see School of Rock on Broadway just to slip my feet a little bit into the shoes of that mother who was shamed in the King and I. 

I volunteered for two years at Theater Development Fund's Autism Friendly Broadway Performances to observe and interact with both the autistic and their guardians. I was particularly moved by one boy who kept resting his head on his Dad's shoulder to ease his anxiety. The boy was 13 to 15 years old and so beautifully honest and sincere in his reactions to "The Lion King." During intermission, I talked to the Dad. This was the first time he and his son had attended a live performance together. Most live performances would never tolerate his son's repetitive movements - which I learned is called "stimming." When the show started up again, I realized most of the families before me had also never attended live performances together. This was their first. I was brought to tears. 

I also interviewed Broadway theater managers and some true theater royalty about the subject of autism in live theater. One theater manager, in particular, said, “The theater is a fragile bubble, and each person in the audience has the power to kill it. Each person has the power to destroy the hard work of technicians, stage managers, costumers, musicians, lighting technicians, set designers, composers, playwrights, actors, etc. Nobody has the right to kill it. Nobody.”

What emerged from this research were two things: 1) there is, in fact, a very real and very widespread frustration that audiences are increasingly unable to be still and be silent during live performances, and 2) I feel thoroughly compassionate toward and respectful of the guardians of autistic children and adults, with a deeper understanding of their lives. I was no longer the man that could ever write that initial knee-jerk reaction to Kelvin Moon Loh’s post again. And yet…have we not all attended a show and been irritated at noise that pulls focus from the stage? Be Still Be Silent emerged as the synthesis of these two points of view.