How to Dance in Ohio – 16 November 2023

I have been excitedly awaiting How to Dance in Ohio‘s Broadway arrival for months. As a neurodivergent person, I couldn’t wait to see a show about people like me that was going to feature people who really understood it. The preview performance that I saw really moved me, because I connected with the perspectives of these characters, the kinds of questions they asked, and the quirkiness of their dreams and fears. In these seven young actors, I saw a reflection of myself and my loved ones, especially those who, like me, are also embracing gender expansiveness.

On the night that I saw the show, there was a scenic malfunction that caused a fairly long break in the first act. Though the show continued afterwards, regrettably, it had lost the audience, who were impatiently checking their watches and trying to figure out what this technical hiccup meant for their schedules after the performance.

While I sincerely hope that on other nights audience members have been more engaged, I walked out of How to Dance in Ohio feeling that while the importance of telling these stories and making sure that neurodivergent characters were played by neurodivergent actors will be remembered and applauded, I’m not sure that the show itself will.

In addition to the scenic malfunction, there were several errors in judgment from the creative team that might sabotage the success of this production. The one that affected me the most was that the show was mixed at a level much quieter than what I am used to hearing on Broadway. Presumably part of the sensory friendly element of the show, the quietness and straining to hear and distinguish words (from my center orchestra seat) prevented me from connecting with the music on an emotional level.  The cast was vocally competent, and I felt like if they had been allowed a more dynamic range for those beautiful ensemble chords, people would feel it and be moved by it.

The more serious error in judgment was playing up how inhibited the characters were on stage. At the stage door after the show, it was very clear to me that the actors had been directed to be more inhibited on stage than they are in real life. This heightened inhibition prevented the emotional moments from landing. The actors were all capable of more vocal contrast and a little bit more connection to each other. I think it would have gone a long way if they had been allowed to be a little truer to themselves, allowed to sing full out in their solo moments rather than leaning into the awkward nature of these characters so much. Awkwardness in characters can work very well in theatre, but when it’s almost all of the characters, the audience starts to feel disconnected from the story.

While some are criticizing the writing of the book, music, and lyrics, as a neurodivergent theatre artist, I have to disagree. These words, these fixations, these slightly incorrectly nuanced big picture ideas– these all felt very true to my real life experience. 

I am proud of a show full of characters who say what they mean, and not what they meant to say. I felt very well represented by this cast, and I sincerely hope that they are able to outshine their creative team and connect with audiences and producers such that they will be offered future projects that make space for them to have inhibitions, but don’t reduce them to a life of awkward sidekicks. This cast is better than that, and they all deserve a chance to transcend the “autistic actor” box that this project is simultaneously creating and shattering.

The performance I attended was a preview performance.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.