Neurodivergent and Dementia-friendly Drama for Adelaide’s RUMPUS Theatre
Set in the context of the climate emergency and COVID-19 pandemic, Clock for No Time asks the great existential question: What endures when ‘we’ are gone? It seeks to answer this question by juxtaposing the brain neuropathologies of Simone (who has an Acquired Brain Injury) and her father Ian (who has Alzheimer’s Disease) and how facing the realities of their conditions in the context of a father-daughter relationship may help Simone find the answer.
Clock for No Time is a genre-busting work about disability, the father-daughter relationship, and living in a world where it often feels like time is running out.
This play embeds access in both performance and audience-inhabited spaces, as well as being neurodivergent and dementia-friendly.
The play is rooted in the personal experiences of playwright-director Michèle Saint - who lives with an Acquired Brain Injury - and her father who passed 2 years ago from Alzheimer’s. These experiences inspired Michèle to make the play as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
“Living with disability I understand that sometimes seemingly straightforward activities like going to the theatre at times can be quite a stressful experience as there are a lot of variables that could happen. I think this play has a really important message and I want as many people to see it as possible and that’s why the show aims to integrate accessibility throughout the performance and audience-inhabited spaces.”
The neurodivergent and dementia friendly main features of this performance are that all shows are relaxed performances, costuming is bold and consistent, extensive signage, a quiet space and stim toys are available as well as visual stories in the Audience Information Pack. All shows feature a combination of Auslan Interpreting and live speech-to-text Captioning as well as a fully Auslan Interpreted final show. All shows are accessible to people who are blind or have low vision with audio recordings, creative audio-descriptive rendered script and 3D textured model, as well as being wheelchair accessible. There will be dedicated trained Access Support workers and a variety of audience viewing stations to suit comfort levels.
Michèle believes Clock for No Time is the first play in Australia to have this degree of access embedded along with being neurodivergent and dementia-friendly.
“As far as I can see no theatre in Australia has been as ambitious as our team has in endeavouring to make a play as universally inclusive. Excitingly, we are also developing in partnership with Appifany Pty Ltd. a skeleton prototype of an Access Theatre App for Android that will have all the access, venue and performance information and which audience members can use throughout the performance to deepen their engagement. We aim to eventually provide this as a fully developed App for Apple and Android for use by theatre makers throughout Australia. I trust our play shows that our ambition is possible and more creators and arts organisations can deliver accessibility when showing their works – it’s all in the planning.”
Clock for No Time is being performed at RUMPUS from October 19-October 31, full dates and times below, and is proudly co-funded by South Australian Government’s COVID Arts Recovery Innovation Fund 2021 through the Department of Premier and Cabinet and RUMPUS.
October 19th (preview): 2pm
October 20th & 27th: 11:30am & 7:30pm
October 21st-23rd & 28-30: 7:30pm
October 24th: 2pm
October 31st (full Auslan Interpreted show): 2PM
Cast and crew
Playwright/Director - Michèle Saint-Yves
Set & Costume Design - Bianka Kennedy
AV/Digital & Technical Design - Mark Oakley
Production Coordinator/Stage Manager – Abigail Heuer
Cast - Jo Stone, Paul Reichstein, Jennifer Liston
Auslan Interpreters – Caroline Conlon (recordings) and Gerry Shearim