HBO Documentry "How To Dance in Ohio"

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Amelia Fei holds a fuzzy yellow hat with a smiley face on it, smoothing it and flipping it in her lap as she talks.

The actress’ choice to audition for the groundbreaking musical “How to Dance in Ohio” could propel her career. It could also destroy her.

“And I was like this close to not auditioning for it, because I don’t know how my friends would react. I don’t know if it will affect my, my career … And I don’t know if the publicity or anything will affect my parents,” said Fei, who is from Taiwan.

To be in the play, she had to tell the world she was autistic. Fei is an accomplished actress and singer, but even her close friends did not know.

Amelia Fei holds a fuzzy yellow hat with a smiley face on it, smoothing it and flipping it in her lap as she talks.

The actress’ choice to audition for the groundbreaking musical “How to Dance in Ohio” could propel her career. It could also destroy her.

“And I was like this close to not auditioning for it, because I don’t know how my friends would react. I don’t know if it will affect my, my career … And I don’t know if the publicity or anything will affect my parents,” said Fei, who is from Taiwan.

To be in the play, she had to tell the world she was autistic. Fei is an accomplished actress and singer, but even her close friends did not know.

It has connections that give it a real chance at Broadway: The producers include Ben Holtzman and Sammy Lopez, who are part of P3 Productions with Fiona Howe Rudin. The partnership produced “The Kite Runner” and “A Strange Loop,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2020. Tony Award winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia plays Emilio Amigo, the doctor who is working with the young people and hatches the idea for a prom.

But it also has made a different, separate joy for the young actors who are, for the first time, able to be themselves onstage and off.

The actors have been in Syracuse for weeks now. Onstage they are telling the story. Offstage, they are living it. What a joy it is for them to be with people who require no explanation for anxious rocking or jittery hand movements, to not need scripts for small talk.

They’ve even come up with a name for themselves: Spectrum Club Seven. That’s who they are: autism superheroes of sorts, without masks.

Only two of the actors had ever portrayed someone with autism. None of them ever had a job where being autistic was required.

At the beginning of this interview, the actors say they will try not to talk over each other. But their words bubble on top of one another as they explain what this experience has been like. There’s no having to hide that they see the world differently as they work to make art. Their differences are the art.

Madison Kopec takes over as the group discusses the proper way to refer to autistic people. (This group, like many others, prefers that term, not “people with autism.”)

No one calls it Asperger’s Syndrome anymore; it’s ASD or autism spectrum disorder, she says. She begins rattling off research and what diagnostic manuals now say. Asperger’s was named for Austrian physician Hans Asperger, who did neurological research on Jewish children during the Holocaust.

In the play, Kopec is Marideth, a young woman with encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything. She, too, prefers books and research to people.

“People who know me are like, ‘Are you acting, or is that just you?’ ” Kopec says.

ASD affects communication. People struggle with conversation, social cues and understanding emotions. They often learn to mime neurotypical people’s responses in social situations. Like raising your eyebrows, or making eye contact during conversation. That’s called “masking.” For these actors, it’s been a lifetime of performing, even offstage.

The musical opened a door to a world where they don’t have to cover up.

“Caroline is just me, not masking,” Fei says, referring to her character in the play. Caroline is joyful and chatty, but she struggles to understand her relationship with her boyfriend and friends.

The reaction to the play’s authenticity has also been unlike anything the actors have ever experienced. One of the other actors in the production brought her son, who is on the autism spectrum, to see the show.

The young actors tear up as they talk about how much he loved it.

He raved to his mom about how great it was to see someone on stage just like him. I didn’t know people could make a musical about what was happening inside my head, he told his mother.

Kopec said the production has worked to accommodate the actors and crew. At the beginning there was a Google form for everyone, from the actors to the crew, asking what kind of accommodations they needed.

Is there something that stresses you out? Is there something that would calm you, an object you’d like to squeeze or hold?

Ashley Wool has been in productions for more than a decade; this was something entirely new.

“The fact that we were all able to talk about it that kind of just helped facilitate a sense of trust among the cast and crew in general, where it was OK for us to talk about stuff,” she said.

It’s also been OK to “stim.” Autistic people are sometimes calmed by repetitive motions or fidgeting. Imani Russell and Desmond Edwards, who are both Black, talk about how they work hard to control that behavior when they are in public.

“People might assume I’m on drugs,” said Edwards, who plays Remy.

Small talk can be exceptionally hard for autistic people. Russell usually goes through little scripts before they go to social events, preparing for each person they might encounter. The rest of the group nods.

But when they hang out together, there is none of that. No need to remember eye contact. No worrying if they missed an eyebrow raise or moved their hands too much.

Producers Ben Holtzman, Sammy Lopez and Fiona Rudin, also known as P3 Productions, are offering a free day of professional development on anti-ableism and inclusivity called Accessibility Day. Scheduled for Jan. 31, the event’s programming will center around disability awareness and education that emerged from the team’s musical-in-development “How to Dance in Ohio.”

Given the subject matter, P3 established a four-person consulting team to help authentically cast, create and run “How to Dance in Ohio.” As Lopez said, “If we were going to build a show that centers autistic young adults, we wanted to make sure that we had autistic young adults as part of our development process from the get-go.”

While the objective of the supplemental team was to ensure inclusivity and accuracy in the musical, what resulted was a complete shift in P3’s producing process not only on “Ohio” but all of its shows.

Holtzman, Lopez and Rudin’s experience with their consulting team has affected how they approach investors, how they cast, how they conduct rehearsals and how they think about the creative material across their projects, regardless of story. “We are all constantly learning new things about the ways in which we can implement anti-ableism practices into our producing philosophies, in general,” Lopez said. The trio wants to share their knowledge with other theatermakers through Accessibility Day.

Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt, who serves as the show’s autistic creative consultant, has been involved in the planning for the day and hopes it will influence producers and other Broadway businesspeople to think differently about disability and accessibility. “Being inclusive and creating accessible spaces isn’t as much work or scary or expensive as many people think it is,” Rigelhaupt said, “especially if you think about inclusion and accessibility from the beginning — which goes into a panel we have.”

The full day of programming begins with Sharing the Stage, a training workshop from Co/Lab Theater Group which aims to help outside teams become inclusive and collaborative, specifically with regards to disability. Co-founded by Becky Leifman, who serves as director of community engagement for “Ohio,” Co/Lab is a nonprofit that began by offering theater classes to adults with developmental disabilities.

The afternoon will feature three panel discussions: Say the Word: Disability; Access in Mind vs. Access in Afterthought; and “Representation Behind the Scenes.” Panelists include A.A. Brenner, Co/Lab’s interim development manager; Sarah Hom, Roundabout Theatre Company’s director of audience development; Gregg Mozgala, a star of “Cost of Living”; Leifman, Jeremy Wein, Nicole D’Angelo and Rigelhaupt — all a part of the “Ohio” consulting team; and members of the “Ohio” cast.

Attendees of Accessibility Day can choose to attend the morning program Sharing the Stage, the afternoon panels or both free of charge.