A local thespian helps people with cognitive disabilities find the limelight through a Scottsdale-based acting troupe.

Under the dimmed lights of Theatre 4301 in Scottsdale, Arizona, the voice of an angel fills the air and a hush sweeps over the audience. All eyes are riveted as Jenna Jenkins’ fingertips glide across Braille deciphering her lines as Sarah Brown, a pure-at-heart city missionary in the musical, Guys and Dolls, Jr. (an adaptation of the Broadway musical, Guys and Dolls).

Center stage, Christopher Forrest strains to enunciate his lines as “Lieutenant Brannigan” while the audience silently cheers him on. Triumphant, the towering young man beams. Two other actors share lines intended for one, and a third, pausing mid-sentence, anxiously glances down at Christopher’s mother, Sam, the director, who feeds him his lines.

Faltering speech, puzzling over lines, uncertainty of movement: all of the actors of Detour Company Theatre have cognitive challenges, but once they have worked their magic, the audience understands what Sam has known from the get go, “Everybody’s a person with a gift.”

“You’re seeing people’s abilities showcased,” says Kathy Delgadillo, mother of cast member Vanessa, a young lady with aphasia. “Nothing cloying or pathetic about it.”

“The first time the special-ed teachers went to see one of the productions, they were like, ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe it’s so good.’  Not, ‘Isn’t it nice to see Justin?’” says his Justin’s mother, Charlcye Beyda.

 “Our first audiences were family and friends,” says the director, Sam, “and they thought, ‘How great. We’re seeing our kids on stage’. But it didn’t take long until others came. Everyone had a good along with the actors. It’s a huge celebration of the human spirit, the will to perform. It’s not ‘want to succeed’, it’s ‘have to succeed’. The group is depending on you, so you give it that extra whatever. The actors want people to laugh, to sing or dance along.”

Although the actors range from age 20 to well into their 60s, Sam points out that they are ageless. “They live wonder.”

Over the years, Detour fans have come to expect the unexpected.

“Things happen that are different ,” Beyda says, “but that adds to it.”
“There are wonderful moments,” says Sam. “I can hardly wait to see how they grow the show and make it their own.”

An interpreter of American Sign Language, Sam, “took a leap of faith” and a leave of absence from Phoenix Day School of the Deaf where she had taught for 12 years to start the nonprofit troupe, a move sparked by son, Christopher, who was brain damaged at birth.

“He has been going to theater since he was very young, always ‘trying’ to help me,” Sam recalls. “Then one day he said, ‘Mom, when’s it going to be my turn?’ and his question just reverberated inside me.”

Unable to find a program for special-needs adults who had “aged out of school,” Sam started DCT. “Now we’re 18 shows later and it has become my life.”

Sam has been tearing down barriers ever since. “They’re a forgotten group. They work at sheltered workshops. They bag your groceries. They’re dishwashers. They’re the people you don’t notice because they carry this meaningless label that says ‘disability’. But they don’t carry it into my rehearsals.”

Adapting musicals with big casts like Seussical! and Beauty and the Beast, “so  everybody can perform,” Sam acknowledges that holding auditions is agonizing. “Whoever wants to be in the show, I will find them a place. It may not be the place they or their mother wants. Even if this group is for folks with special needs, I’m still committed to providing a theater experience that’s rewarding for people that come to see it.

“We’re not a therapeutic group, but drama is therapy. It’s worked miracles in the lives of everybody.”

Beyda recalls Justin’s early days in speech therapy. “It got to a point where the therapist was beginning to show me some signing. Later, she went to see one of the plays and was crying and said, ‘I cannot believe it. I can remember us sitting on the floor, not knowing if this kid was even going to be able to talk.’”

“It’s a better world because you fall in love with these actors,” Sam says.  “Everybody who wants to do theatre deserves a chance.”