Amity’s Unified Theater Brings Together Students

Amity Regional High School’s Unified Theater program recently delivered a performance that was met with tremendous success. This was as expected because, since its reinstatement, the program has had many such prior triumphs.

 

In most classes, students are divided by academic ability, leaving little room for meaningful connections outside of their everyday social circles. However, the Unified Theater program here at Amity aims to change that.

 

The Unified Theater program, run by school psychologists Clare Collins and Bibi John, creates a space where students of all abilities can come together and collaborate, create, and perform. As John puts it, the program presents an opportunity for students “with different disabilities to get more opportunities to interact with their peers.”

 

Unified Theater provides students with a unique kind of exposure that can be lacking even in the everyday school setting. The very popular Unified Sports program at Amity holds similar overarching goals, namely to connect students who normally would not have any relations.

 

However, Unified Sports promotes inclusion through competition. Rather than competition, Unified Theater offers students the opportunity to foster new, previously improbable connections through creativity and artistic expression.

 

For Collins, providing students of all abilities with access to new forms of art is a vital part of the program’s value as well. In the academic setting of school, it can often be difficult for some students to find ways to make artistic explorations beyond their art electives. Unified Theater both provides this exposure and brings together peers who normally never connect with one another throughout the typical school day. It’s one thing to talk about inclusion and progress on paper, but to see it happen is another.

 

Collins said, “I think that a lot of the students…are more open and relaxed,” and John finds them “overall feeling more confident [and] proud of themselves”. The students themselves feel similarly.

 

Grace Meacham ‘28 also said, “I’ve become more patient…and learned how important it is to create an inclusive environment.”

 

Their latest production on March 10th was another success. While Collins remarked that the most difficult part was the logistics of the previous year, once the ball got rolling, it became a huge success for all involved.

 

She enjoys working with students beyond the traditional capacity of her job and getting to meld her passion for her job with her passion for the arts.

 

Unified Theater is more than just a performance program. The importance of connection is impossible to undercut; the genuine human connection and inclusion that students experience is invaluable.

 

The artistic exposure and unlikely bonds created between students who wouldn’t otherwise interact with each other are truly remarkable.

 

Collins’ and John’s hard work and dedication, in addition to the passion of all of the students who participate in the program, have quietly dissolved many of the invisible barriers that divide students in the school day.