Elanso

I really think of this piece as a love story between a husband and wife, between a mother and a son and between a father and a son.”

Says playwright Stacey Dinner-Levin of her play, Artistic License, which will be performed April 25 and 26 at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis. More from Dinner-Levin (who has an autistic child) about her inspiration for writing Autistic License:

“This play is based upon our experience of raising a child with autism - the things that happened in our family that were tragic, surreal and funny. This is the kind of stuff you can’t make up! Nobody sees what goes on in families with a child living with a disability. To me theater was the perfect vehicle to tell this story and to give voice to all families living with disability. I really wanted to open the doors, take down the walls of our house and say, ‘Come in, take a good look, and see this for what it is: the struggle of my life, along with the beauty and the joy.’”

The play offers a glimpse of what it is like to raise a child “in a world that has far too many opinions on what is ‘normal.’” Michael Paul Levin, the playwright’s husband, plays the role of the autistic son.

Dinner-Levin’s comment about the play as about a couple of “love stories”—between father and son, mother and son, and between husband and wife: This rings home most of all with me. Even on the toughest, darkest gray days it’s love and sticking together that sustain.

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