A Review of How To Dance In Ohio
A personal take from a neurodivergent individual
It’s too bad How to Dance in Ohio is receiving a very limited run at the Belasco Theatre. I wish the run lasted much longer. It is closing on February 11, and I saw one of the last performances. I am including spoilers here since you will not likely see it in its current Broadway incarnation.
It’s fair to say there has never been this kind of autistic representation among the cast of any single play in history. This makes the musical groundbreaking and sets a precedent for neurodiverse actors playing their own neurotypes in the future. Professional theatre companies need to know that there are more than likely already quite a few autistic equity actors/actresses nationwide, and the talent is available. The producers of this show were met with skepticism when they wanted to cast an all-autistic group playing other autistic characters and found it easier to accomplish than expected. Fortunately, a trial run in Syracuse helped to flesh out all the details before it hit the Broadway stage.
At the very beginning of the play, the autistic cast comes on stage and breaks the fourth wall, waving at everyone with boundless energy as if greeting long-lost friends. The audience is cheering vociferously. The cast explains they are all autistic and repeats Stephen Shore’s famous line, “When you’ve met one person on the spectrum, you’ve met one person on the spectrum.” And one of the actors then says…” Now, you have met seven of us!” This is again met with wild applause by the audience. They then let audience members know of the cool down area near the bathrooms and commence with the play.
The musical follows a cast of neurodivergent autistic individuals participating in group therapy with Dr. Emilo Amigo, a real-life therapist in Columbus, Ohio. As Dr. Amigo tries to push his characters beyond their comfort zones, the idea of planning a spring formal is brought to the fore. The autistic individuals are terrified of the idea, but Dr. Amigo coaches them into it through his signature brand of gentle motivation.
True to Stephen Shore’s quotation that every person with autism is different from everyone else, the same applies to the characters. It is important to remember that the characters are derived from real people because the musical is based on a documentary. This makes for highly compelling theatregoing. Drew (Liam Pearce) is a college-bound engineer with extreme anxiety. Remy (Desmond Luis Edwards) has a TikTok-type channel and is a fashion, gender-fluid diva. Tommy (Conor Tague) can’t wait to drive a car. Mel (Imani Russell) is bullied by her boss and works a minimum wage job at a pet store, with her goal being to set up a rescue for dogs and cats. Marideth (Madison Kopec) is a human encyclopedia who deals only in “facts” but can easily get overwhelmed and runs out of group therapy meetings when dysregulated. Caroline (Amelia Fei) is an extroverted person who has a boyfriend.
The play’s first half deals with each character’s anxieties and how that behavior impacts their parents’ fears and hopes. It isn’t until we get into the second act that the play makes a political statement.
In Act II, Dr. Amigo has unethically agreed to be interviewed by two reporters about the spring formal. Dr. Amigo senses that the two reporters take pity on his group and want to make the story about his therapy, not the autistic individuals. He hesitatingly agrees and sets into motion the story coming out before the spring formal has taken place. It’s written with condescension, pity, and a dash of “inspiration porn.” All the autistic characters feel betrayed. Remy plans to go on TikTok to address the issue of ableism. Drew is the only person to show up to the dance. Dr. Amigo sees the error of his ways and gives Drew the responsibility of organizing a “second chance dance.”
In Act II, the script finally gets political when the neurodiversity themes emerge as the characters face particular hardships. After Mel is bullied by her boss, she says to her friend that disabled people should be making more than below the minimum wage, and the audience erupts with applause to this statement. After Dr. Amigo is interviewed and the story comes out, the group scolds him for not including them to be interviewed for the story. More applause from the audience. As each person arrives for the spring formal, the audience cheers them on again. The energy was really flowing. You had to be there. It was electric.
The talent was off the charts. These autistic actors gave such accurate representation to a population that has never had anything like it in a theatrical setting. One could feel the love the audience deservingly gave them. Let’s hope that there is a national tour of this musical. It would be well worth the effort.
However, the musical did have some flaws.
Delving into a character’s backstory with so many lead characters is hard. Yet, as audience members, all we have to go on is what each character is like during therapy sessions and very, very briefly at home. Because of this, it sometimes felt like the characters lacked depth and nuance. I wanted to know more about what made them who they were: Did they experience trauma? What was it like for them at school? What was life like for them outside of the group? The script did not allow for this level of detail because there were so many lead characters.
I was also disappointed that other than Remy’s gender-neutral character, there were no LGBTQ themes addressed in a play based on the idea of going to a dance. This was a missed opportunity that seemed like a glaring omission. And all of the relationships were platonic, which also felt like a missed opportunity because the concept of sexuality was not touched despite the climax of the musical being a spring formal. It made me wonder whether the play inadvertently reinforced a stereotype that autistic people are asexual.
The play also had a fairy-tale ending. Everyone goes to the dance and is happy. I would have liked to see something left unresolved to give the audience different interpretations to go home with and chew on. Yet perhaps that type of ending was not meant for a musical like this, which was to finally give autistic people representation on stage and project success.
Other than the song Building Momentum, sung amazingly by Liam Pearce, the music was instantly forgettable. The actors’ and actresses’ voices were incredible, but most of the songs lacked a hook, and the quodlibet employed in many different songs did not make sense to include for an autistic audience. If seven characters sing different lines simultaneously within the same song, it is impossible to process all of the lyrics — and this is increasingly problematic for those with auditory processing challenges. And in the case of this specific play, it detracted from the music itself.
If I were Gene Siskel or Robert Ebert (even though they were movie critics), I would give the play a thumbs up. It accomplished its purpose. But it has room for improvement if there are any revamps or tweaking of the book (script) and music in the works.
