HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO's Ashley Wool Shares How Autistic People Can Benefit From A Theatre Education

Ashley Wool is an autistic actor making her Broadway debut in the new musical, How to Dance in Ohio, currently running at the Belasco Theatre. Below, read her first person essay on how arts education helped her navigate the complexities of life on the autism spectrum.

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“Wow, I didn’t know there were autistic actors.”

Interviewing me for The New York Times, Erik Piepenburg mentioned this shocked response from a colleague when he said he was writing about a Broadway musical featuring autistic characters played by autistic actors—of which I am one.

How, Mr. Piepenburg wondered, would I respond to that?

It’s easy, in 2024, for me to scoff at anyone who can’t wrap their minds around my very existence as an autistic actor—let alone my skill and professionalism. But in fairness to Mr. Piepenburg’s friend, I didn’t know autistic actors existed either until I was diagnosed in 2008, my junior year of college, after my younger sister noticed an openly autistic contestant on America’s Next Top Model and said, “this girl reminds me of Ashley.”

I know now that my performing arts education was not hindered by being autistic—in fact, it was exactly the education I needed to help me learn many things that don’t come naturally to autistic people. My performing arts education gifted me access to a world not designed for me, and taught me how to become the best version of myself within that world without sacrificing or demonizing any of the things that made me me. I had the sort of education that I believe all children deserve access to—and, I would argue, neurodivergent children most of all.

For this piece, I’ve outlined some of the ways in which my performing arts education specifically benefited me as an autistic person. Though I am not an education or mental health professional, I hope sharing my experiences will foster clinically beneficial conversations within those circles, and within the theatre industry.

Dance taught me to listen to my body

Like many autistic people, I struggle with interoception—the sense that tells me the state of my own body and is responsible for correctly processing internal cues such as hunger, thirst, and tension. I also struggle with proprioception—the sense responsible for spatial awareness of myself and others around me.

My extensive dance background—particularly my childhood ballet training—taught me how to listen to my body and interpret cues from both inside and outside. Through dance, I developed an awareness of different muscle groups and learned to equitably engage them in my day-to-day activities. I also developed an awareness of my “center of gravity” and how that parlayed into balance and coordination. While I was never great at the balancing turns like piques and pirouettes—and for most of my life, never knew why—I underestimated how valuable consistent practice was to my life outside the studio. Nowadays, when I experience “off days” with balance, muscle stiffness, or even vocal fatigue, I have systematic ways of diagnosing the problem (have I eaten today? am I dehydrated? have I warmed up my muscles sufficiently?) I owe this to my dance training, and to my ongoing yoga practice. (Hot yoga is my favorite, but that’s another article for another day.)

Theatre taught me social sensitivity

As someone who struggled with gauging how body language and tone of voice impacted the way people received and responded to my attempts to communicate, theatre taught me systematic methods to differentiate between what I said and how I said it. In real-life social situations, I often felt like I was playing a constant guessing game, making sure my intentions were understood and that I wasn’t offending or hurting others (and what was perceived as offensive or hurtful differed from person to person, and day to day, seemingly at random).

But it became far less of a guessing game when I practiced these conversations and scenarios within the context of a character and a set storyline. When the “real world” pressure was lifted, playing with words and their varying meanings and intentions became a fun thing to do—even if it was just my scene partner and I improvising in gibberish. I learned the power of subtlety in conveying intentions and emotions, and learned to respect that these expressions didn’t look or sound the same on everyone. These were overwhelming things to learn, but they were also fascinating and liberating, and it encouraged me to become curious about people—especially people who were culturally different from me—instead of defensive and mistrustful.

This is particularly important for autistic individuals because a common stereotype about autistic people is that we lack empathy and are more likely to be sociopaths. There is little formal research to support or denounce this theory (my unscientific guess is that true sociopaths exist in our community at about the same rate as they exist in the general population). However, autistic expressions of empathy are often misunderstood or even demonized.

For instance, I tend to process situations intellectually first and emotionally second; my good friends know that my love language is “I researched your problem and possible solutions, and now I will infodump about my findings and cite my sources.” But if I’m not careful to determine whether someone is emotionally prepared to receive answers/theories/advice, I’ll be written off as callous, or a know-it-all, or trying to talk over someone’s experience. In learning to make these distinctions (or know which questions to ask if I’m still not sure), my acting and dramaturgy training have helped me tremendously.

One thing to note is that theatrical scripts and traditional clinical social scripts often used in autism-specific therapy settings are not the same thing. I’m not saying one is inherently better or worse than the other, but I will say that for me, there was always a sense of safety in the context of a character in imagined circumstances. Even if the character or the circumstance was very similar to me and my life, everyone understood that it wasn’t me. And with that understanding in place, it became safe—even fun—to screw up and try it another way. If the character wasn’t me, then a director’s feedback felt constructive and artistic, not condescending to me, the human.

Performance art in practice taught me how to balance self-discipline with self-care

As someone who frequently sought out intense sensory experiences only to then become overwhelmed and disappointed in myself for not “handling” them, the process of working on a show taught me a lot about boundaries, self-discipline, and self-care.

In the days before my diagnosis—and indeed, for many of the years I hid my diagnosis—I had terrible boundaries. I was a chronic people-pleaser who based my perception of my talent—onstage or off—on how well I could conform to the preferences of whichever director or manager I was working under. This typically meant deprioritizing my own needs and instincts, and assuming that if anyone asked me what I needed, the only acceptable answer was “nothing.” This is common in autistic adults, particularly women, until they hit a period of burnout they cannot easily recover from—often in their thirties, which is exactly what happened to me.

The first time I disclosed my autism to an employer was 2019. I was in a musical with a community theatre group I loved dearly and had previously worked with; the director had known me since I was 14. During a dance rehearsal, I became very tired and overwhelmed, and felt the mask slipping. My vocal intonation, as usual, was the first thing to go, followed by my facial engagement—I knew I was behaving erratically, speaking flatly, and making the “wrong” faces, but I couldn’t stop. The director emailed me that night and asked what was going on, and I realized I couldn’t hide from it anymore; he deserved to know the truth.

His response floored me. “Thank you so much for telling us. Now we have a context we didn’t have before, and we still love you just the way you are. How can we support you and help you feel more comfortable?”

Indeed, that is the approach the production team has taken at How to Dance in Ohio—not just for the autistic and disabled folks, but for everyone. I’ve learned is that discussing my needs candidly does not necessarily put a target on my back; rather, it cultivates an environment that gives others permission to do the same, without fear of judgment. It’s no coincidence that numerous people on the Ohio team—onstage, backstage, and everywhere in between—have emphatically stated that our show has the best work environment they’ve ever experienced in this industry. And the audience can feel it too.

A note on privilege; why I’m glad I wasn’t diagnosed as a child

I’ve often wondered what my life might have been like if I had been diagnosed as a child. I think if a child exactly like me was born today, she would benefit from an early diagnosis in the right circumstances. But in the 90s, those “right” circumstances didn’t exist. In the 90s, diagnosed autistic children were assumed to be intellectually and emotionally stunted, with little to no chance of meaningful growth, communication, or relationships.

In best-case scenarios—surrounded by people with the best intentions and the most extensive knowledge of autism that existed at the time—they were isolated from their peers and pushed into “therapy” that focused on correcting “problematic” behavior (even if that behavior was just harmless stimming or discomfort with eye contact).

In worst-case scenarios, they were institutionalized…or removed from their families by Child Protective Services, their parents deemed “unfit” to care for them…or murdered.

I did not experience any of this, but much of this good luck is rooted in systemic privilege. I’m a cisgender white woman who grew up in a financially stable two-parent household (with a stay-at-home mom!) in the suburbs of Westchester County, NY. I attended an excellent public school from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Sure, I experienced burnout, bullying from my peers, persistent struggles to fit in and be understood, and some teachers who didn’t want to put up with it…but I also had teachers who encouraged my passions and talents, a small-but-mighty friend group who loved and affirmed me and always rose to my defense, and a school psychologist who evaluated me with the best information available at the time. She didn’t diagnose me, but she knew what I needed: access to supportive communities and outlets for my creativity.

I had access to all those things, but many people do not.

This is why I push back on using terms like “high-functioning” to describe people like me. The problem with that ideology is twofold. Firstly, calling someone “high-functioning” diminishes their struggles and makes them less likely to have their support needs taken seriously by healthcare professionals (and don’t many of us struggle with that enough as it is?) Equally importantly, calling me “high-functioning” gives me all the credit for my success—ignoring the fact that I was given every advantage in life, and thereby absolving society of the responsibility to ensure that those same advantages are not systemically denied to others.

It's my fervent hope that this piece helps float some ideas about what we as theatremakers can do to meet that responsibility.

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