When my daughter was in third grade she decided she wanted to be in the school talent show. I signed a permission slip, and together we chose a short humorous poem for her to read—Cartwheels from the book Hey World, Here I Am! by Jean Little.

On the day of the talent show, my daughter tripped lightly onto the stage and read her poem about not being able to do cartwheels. She demonstrated one of her failed cartwheels, shrugged and walked off. The audience loved it. They clapped and cheered and gave her tons of compliments afterwards. This was the beginning of my daughter’s love of theater.

I figured theater classes would be good for my high-functioning autistic daughter. Perhaps in learning how to interpret scripts, or deconstruct a scene, she might learn how to interpret life. The early classes were taken at the community center. They were simple and fun, and she loved them. She did some plays at with the community center. These were also simple and fun with a part for anyone who wanted one. Then came the plays in the park. The first play was a musical version of Alice Through the Looking Glass. My daughter wanted the lead, and she got it. Everyone assured me that it had nothing to do with the fact that she looked like Alice with her blue eyes and long blond hair.

Alice was a great experience. My daughter learned all her blocking and lines right away. She learned everyone else’s blocking and lines, too, and she regularly corrected and prompted the others—even when she was on stage doing a performance. We discovered she had a beautiful singing voice. The show was a triumph.

My daughter was on fire for acting. She decided to audition for the local community theater. I must admit, I had misgivings. At one time this theater had a strong focus on children’s theater and education with children’s shows during the school year that heavily featured younger actors, and a summer theater program for teens. Then they decided to cut the summer program and roll everything into just three shows during the year. The classes became little more than seminars, and the competition for roles became fierce.

Then there was the audition itself. The community center auditions had been easy-going. I knew that the ones at the theater might be more formal. Theater auditions can involve interpreting the language of the script into emotions, interacting in a meaningful way with people you just met a few seconds ago, and lots of eye contact. All of these can be problems for an autistic child. Still, I took her, and she did well. She even made it to callbacks before ultimately ending up painting scenery.

She went on to audition for other, less competitive theaters in the area. Sometimes, she got in, sometimes she didn’t. She performed another major role for the plays in the park. She got into two school plays in her middle school. Many of the plays she got into were plays that wanted as many children as possible and cast anyone who showed up. However, once she worked with a director, he or she would always cast my daughter over and over again in increasingly large parts. She’s incredibly good at taking direction (as long as it is specific) and has absolutely no stage fright or inhibitions when it comes to what she is asked to do. Need someone to come out during a scene change and lead the audience in the Hokey Pokey? She’s your girl. Want someone to run screaming off the stage, through the audience, and down the hall? She can do that, too. Plus, I’ve noticed she has a real stage presence. She sparkles up there.

Still, despite all her successes and a resume I would have killed for when I was her age, she never managed to break into the community theater where she first auditioned. It became her holy grail. Her grandfather thought that maybe she needed an in, so he bought her one of their theater seminars. At the end class, her teacher’s only comment was: I want to see sad, not what sad looks like.

I felt frustration well up inside me. My daughter worked hard to learn what sad looks like. I remember two years of her pointing to faces in books and on TV.

“What is he feeling?” “What is she feeling?”

She studied the emotions she saw so she could recognize them and know how to respond appropriately. It was something she had to learn—it didn’t come naturally to her like it does to the rest of us. I am endlessly proud that my daughter knows what sad looks like.

The seminar led to more tech jobs, but no real roles—not even chorus. This theater considers itself an artsy theater and it keeps its chorus size down. The people who run it seem more interested in the art than providing opportunities for the community to act. Unfortunately, with the recent economic problems, most of the other programs my daughter acted with have disappeared. This theater is rapidly becoming the only game in town.

Finally, she broke down. Once again she had made it to callbacks, only to end up building scenery. It was the same place she had been seven years ago when she started, and she recognized that fact.

“It’s not fair,” she told me. “They use the same people over and over again.”

And she was right. Theater is essentially not fair. The best way to gain experience and skills is by working with a director in a show, and those lucky enough to have that experience use it get into more shows where they gain more experience. It’s the Catch-22 of theater.

It’s a frustrating thing to watch. The director didn’t know how hard my daughter had to work to provide the audition performance that she did. He didn’t know that by even being up there at all she was playing to her weaknesses instead of her strengths. She was doing what all the books say she shouldn’t be able to do at all, and I am so incredibly proud of her.

We discussed getting her onto the forensics team at school. Participating in forensics is a great way to gain experience and learn skills without actually being in a play. There is a certain amount of school pride tied up in how you do at competitions, so the director of the program will spend some time working one-on-one with you, and that is invaluable. Of course, it can be daunting. There is maybe five feet between you and your audience with no fancy lighting to soften that fact. You learn to create a fourth wall really fast. But my daughter has never had trouble with that. She feeds off the audience when she performs, interacting with them as a collective much more skillfully that she can interact with them individually.

My daughter agreed to give forensics a try, and I spent most of the night sitting up with her. As I looked at her I thought back to that seminar comment.

If the teacher could only see her now, I thought to myself, she would see sad.