True Ability to Host FREE Professional Acting Classes for Deaf and Disabled Youth

True Ability has announced its FREE professional acting classes for Deaf and disabled young people in the City of Adelaide. These excitingTheatre Workshops will be led by Creative Director and Advocate Kelly Vincent and Award Winning Theatre Maker Alirio Zavarce.

Enrollment is now open and classes will begin on the 25th of July.

For the past two years, True Ability has been running fun and accessible drama workshops for young people with disabilities aged 7-15 in the northern suburbs. We have been working hard to meet the demand for our unique classes and we are delighted to be able to expand to offer creative opportunities to more young people in the Tandanya/Adelaide area.

True Ability is a partnership between disabled writer Creative Director Kelly Vincent who has a background in disability and inclusion policy and best practice, and multi-award-winning actor and director Alirio Zavarce as Artistic Director. Their complimentary skillsets, combined with their shared passion for theatre that tells raw, challenging, and previously unheard stories, make for workshops in which everyone is respected and included exactly as they are. Through a uniquely exploratory and playful teaching process, Kelly and Alirio create classes that are as engaging as they are enjoyable. With this new addition, True Ability will now offer free classes and performance opportunities for all people ages 7 and up.

Creative Director Kelly Vincent said these new workshops represent an exciting period of growth for True Ability.

"Given that True Ability is only two years old, we are really still in our infancy compared to other theatre companies in the state," they said.

"I think the great amount of growth we've been able to achieve in that time is a testament to our dedication to providing something different in a landscape where too many disabled arts organisations are still not led by disabled people. I think our leadership and approach really resonates," Kelly said.

Kelly said that this leadership is not only important symbolically but in a practical sense.

"A lot of young people come to our classes having absorbed the message that there is something 'wrong' with them, and they need to change to succeed. Then they meet me who can communicate and create with them on their natural neurodivergent level thanks to my own autism and ADHD, and Alirio who knows what it's like to feel different in a country you weren't born in, and something clicks. There is also enormous growth through the friendships that naturally blossom between the young people," they said

"For me, True Ability, and especially our youth classes, is about modelling what disabled people can express and achieve when given the opportunity and correct support. If we can give the next generation the confidence to know that they have a story worth sharing and that they deserve to be heard, for me, that's what it's all about."

We start our classes for young people aged 12-21 on the 25th of July 2022.

Classes will be at North Adelaide Community Centre on Mondays from 6:15 pm to 7:30 pm.

Website: https://www.ajzproductions.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueAbilityArts

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trueabilityarts