LINCOLN - Seventh-grader Stephanie Scanlon remembers the exhilaration she felt after a recent performance of "Breaking Through" when an audience member approached her and said, "I finally understand exactly how you feel!" The audience member was no stranger - it was Stephanie's 8-year-old sister.
This is exactly the kind of reaction Shea Schatell was hoping for when she and her colleague, Bruce Pasha, wrote the earliest iterations of the musical 16 years ago. Schatell and Pasha are teachers in the arts program at the Carroll School, a private school in Lincoln for children with language-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
The idea of creating a musical based on their students' experiences with learning disabilities took root in 1992, when Pasha and Schatell began writing lyrics and putting them to music. The result back then was a simple set of songs about living with learning disabilities. The music would crop up from time to time in choral performances and assemblies at the Carroll School - but Schatell, who has worked as a children's acting coach for WGBH, always dreamed of going back to the project and turning it into something more polished.
Last year she and Pasha finally did that, rewriting the dialogue to bring it up to date, soliciting feedback from students and faculty, and even pulling in a Manhattan-based musician to fine-tune the music. This January they began taking their production on the road. The cast of 16 seventh-graders is putting on weekly performances of "Breaking Through" at schools throughout Massachusetts this spring, and plans are in the works to produce a DVD for national distribution.
The play tells the story of Emily, a girl who is popular and musically talented but cannot surmount the anguish that her academic problems cause her - until she reaches out for help and discovers she has dyslexia, a situation that can be alleviated with special help and understanding.
For cast members, the musical has created a unique channel through which to discuss the often complicated subject of learning disabilities. Many students find their way to the Carroll School after struggling academically and sometimes socially in public schools among peers who do not understand their particular challenges. Even attending a private school catering to disabilities like theirs doesn't solve this problem for every child.
"Before I got to this school, I thought I was the only one in the whole world with dyslexia," said Abby Kennelly. "But even when I came here - a place where everyone has dyslexia - I didn't understand how many kids were struggling with the same things I was. Now, because of the play, I finally understand how much we all have in common."
Her classmate Michael Murphy agreed that being part of the cast has taken his comprehension of learning disabilities to a new level. "Before we did the play, we only knew the scientific meaning of dyslexia," he said. "Once we started rehearsing, we talked about what it feels like, and we learned how it is for each other."
For young adolescents, communicating directly about difficult emotional issues - with parents, siblings, and even friends - can be challenging. The performances have alleviated the problem for many of them. "One of my really good friends from outside of school came to see the play," said Kira Teare-Thomas. "She already knew I was dyslexic, but she never really understood what that meant until she saw the play and learned about Emily's experiences."
Scanlon believes there can be benefits for those peers who are not friends of hers as well. "At my old school, there were three of us who had learning disabilities, and the other kids called us names. When kids see this play, they understand that we're not stupid. It changes their attitude toward us."
Just as the cast hopes their performances alter the perspective of non-dyslexic students, they also hope to reach students in the audience who do have learning disabilities. "At the last school where we performed the play, a girl told us afterward that she had dyslexia," Teare-Thomas said. "She really cared about the play because she had gone through everything the girl in the play goes through. It made us feel good to think it meant so much to someone. It's not just that we're putting on a good play; it's that the audience actually gets the message."
Of course, the kids in the cast are learning that you can't please everyone.
"People react to the show differently," Kennelly said. "At one performance, some students looked really bored or sleepy. Some kids think they already know everything and don't want to hear differently."
Still, if there's a good way to get the message across, Schatell and Pasha seem to have found it. "This is a great idea because everyone enjoys musicals, but this one teaches people about something," said cast member Gabriel Jonas. "It teaches us, too. I've learned a lot about myself while working on this play. We wrote some of our lines based on true things in our lives. I also learned there are a lot of really accomplished people, including actors, who are dyslexic."
Kennelly remembers looking out during one performance and spotting her grandfather in the audience, riveted. It wasn't that the perspective was new to him - just the opposite. "He has dyslexia too, and afterward he said to me, 'That play told the story of my childhood,' " she said. "He's an inspiration to me, because he's accomplished so much."
"Breaking Through" is designed to run about the length of a school assembly. The cast has learned to make do with whatever facilities the schools they visit can offer - they've performed in everything from cafeterias and libraries to brand-new theaters.
For the two teachers, the resounding applause after each show is "unbelievably exhilarating," Schatell said.
"You never know how good your work is until you test it on a live audience, and in our case, an audience beyond our own campus," Schatell said. "The audience here at the Carroll School is by definition going to be sensitive to and supportive of these issues; the real challenge was taking it to a non-learning disabled environment and seeing how the audience could relate. But of course, the underlying themes are relevant to school audiences everywhere. It's OK to be different, you need to advocate for yourself, and being unique can be a great thing."
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