HOHENFELS, Germany -- As part of Autism Awareness Month, members of the Hohenfels Middle/High School Drama Club performed for the community with the Kids on the Block puppets, April 28 and 29.
The Kids on the Block are life-sized puppets that help teach children and adults about disabilities, medical and educational differences, and social concerns. Created in 1977, the program has grown each year to become an internationally recognized platform for increasing acceptance and appreciation of differences and helping to educate and dispel myths relating to individuals who have disabilities.
The Drama Club presented a skit involving a young girl who meets her new neighbors and finds the younger sibling teaching his older brother to play with a ball. She realizes that there is something very different about the older boy, and she asks his brother about autism and begins to understand that despite the autistic child's apparently strange behaviors, they are not so different after all.
The show was performed for the Hohenfels Elementary School's fourth grade class, as well as an encore presentation at the library.
"We wanted to provide an opportunity for the community to see the puppet show, and we're trying to reach out to families who might be homeschooling their children or maybe have children who are not quite of school age," said Terry Giles, Exceptional Family Member Program coordinator.
The Exceptional Family Member Program provided the puppets and dialogue, and the Drama Club practiced for about a month.
"They had to learn a new medium and a new script," said drama teacher Barbara Nicklin. "They had to learn puppeteering from scratch. They've really done well to master this stuff in a month."
With three characters and multiple moving parts, the show presented some unique challenges to the drama club cast. For senior Breanna Cornett the most difficult part was learning the dialogue, while ninth-grader Cece Butler found the choreography to be the biggest challenge.
"It was really the whole multi-tasking thing; working the puppets while saying the lines," explained sophomore Damita Harris.
Senior Michelle Wall added that the group had to learn more about autism so that they could field questions from the audience during the interactive portion of the shows.
Both audience and cast members enjoyed the experience, and the cast feels confident they will continue to improve over time.
"It was fun because the little kids didn't judge us," laughed junior Payton Chandler. "They were just all like -- 'hey, puppets!'"
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