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Sealey told me a story about a production of Romeo and Juliet she worked on with 
various autistic actors, acknowledging that every autistic experience is “very 
different and very unique”. Laughing, she explained that an actress in the circle 
started stimming which caused three or four more people to start stimming.  
Understanding this, she separated them so they couldn’t see each other. She 
didn’t shame them or tell them off like many do, like teachers I’ve had, but  
embraced their joy and excitement allowing them to be themselves in their safe 
space. 
Sealey further explained that her autistic Romeo came up to her and said, “your 
way of directing is very nebulous” admitting that she is chaotic, knows what she’s 
doing, but appreciated she needed to find a way to communicate that was clear 
to the actors. Her Juliet was Deaf and needed eye contact, but Romeo found eye 
contact difficult at first so she had to work out a way to make it accessible for both 
their needs. Another example of the show needing adjustments was for the actress 
playing the nurse who had physical difficulties who wouldn’t be able to get back up 
after shaking the lifeless Juliet towards the end. With careful consideration Sealey 
realised a bench from the next scene could be brought in early for Juliet to lie on so 
the nurse didn’t have to bend over. Sealey said, “It’s not a can’t, it’s… right, what’s 
the solution? And how does that feed into the next bit?” She continued: “And it’s 
that word can’t, I don’t like it, because it’s, ‘you know, this is going to be difficult 
for me to do’.” Sealey’s attitude shows that any show can be made accessible for 
actors and shows can and should work for them.  
A realisation I had last year when thinking about characterisation was, whatever 
character I’m playing, now has my disability because I can’t turn it off. It was a  
difficult realisation that that didn’t make me a lesser performer, but that’s how I 
protect myself when I am performing to make sure I’m giving the best performance 
I possibly can. 
Sealey talked about how she had been doing work with drama schools with  
lecturers because they were mindful of the diversity of students and their  
experience in their cohort. She said: 
It’s about really consolidating the ethos of the group and a space where 
people could talk about their mental health. They could talk about their  
autism, they could talk about their neurodiversity, or anything else. And 
it becomes so they lay everything out and collectively, they draw up their 
toolkit of how they want to operate in their training. They pay a lot of money 
for the training, and therefore, it has to work for them. 
This is something I think is really important, and I would have benefited from in my 
first year of university. When my first teacher tried to be consoling, I was told  
everyone feels the same and I’ll get through it; there was very little empathy for 

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