SENSE Theatre Benefit At DMTC - Children With Autism

Purchase Tickets for the Fundraiser

Christine Totah and Jeni Price have been the DMTC point people on this fundraiser. It looks like a really interesting venture between DMTC's Storybook Theatre and SENSE Theatre. Buy your tickets now! This benefit might actually sell out!:

For children with Autism, simple communication with others can be extremely challenging. Now, a program called SENSE Theater is helping those with the neurodevelopmental disorder that affects approximately 1 in 150 American children and 1 in 94 boys.

SENSE Theater is a unique theatrical intervention research program designed to improve the social and emotional functioning of children with Autism. The new and innovative program is a blending of youth actors, who are experts in social communication and language, with autistic children who have challenges around basic social interactions.

On Friday, Feb. 6 from 7 to 9 p.m., a benefit will be held for the founding of the SENSE Theater at the 238-seat Davis Musical Theatre, located at 607 Pena Drive in Davis.

Tickets are available for $50. Youth actors and children with autism will perform onstage, demonstrating how art and science can come together to both heal and educate.

In addition, Franc D’Ambrosio, the World’s Longest Running Phantom, who brought more than five million theater-goers to their feet for more that six years, will give a very special performance. SENSE Theater’s first full stage production set for June 2009 will be “Disney’s The Jungle Book,” directed by Jeni Price.

“SENSE Theater is a rich opportunity for both parents and professionals to team up together to create a visionary and imaginative community-based intervention program,” says Blythe Corbett, Ph.D., who is co-founder of SENSE Theater, along with parent advocate Christine Totah. Corbett, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at University of California, Davis and a pediatric neuropsychologist with the M.I.N.D. Institute adds, “The theatre aids in enhancing communication and relating to one another. The theatre can be transforming for many people, especially for children with autism.”