Improv, Acting, & Social Skills (Ages 18+) with Autism!

At The Miracle Project, we refer to the volunteers who work within our classrooms as “Co-Actors.” Co-Actors are an essential component of The Miracle Project’s philosophy and mission to build a fully inclusive neurodiverse environment where everyone belongs.

As a volunteer, you will play a role as a peer mentor alongside the participants in class. You will meet each participant where they are at and model positive collaboration with the instructors and other participants.

Co-Actor responsibilities include:

• Enthusiastically participate in all class activities, supporting participant engagement.
• Be paired up with one or more participants to provide gentle encouragement and camaraderie.
• Arrive 15 minutes before class and remain 15 minutes after class to plan, debrief, and collaborate with Teaching Artists and fellow Co-Actors.
• Attend assigned programming weekly.
• Be a friend!

Using improvisation, theater games, and role-play, participants in our “Improv for Interaction” classes practice skills needed for positive social interaction. Participants will increase their capacity to focus, take and follow directions, and ease anxiety. Among the themes this class will touch upon are:

• Building and sustaining friendships
• Taking and following direction
• Understanding and applying feedback
• Developing skills for self-advocacy
• Reading social “cues”
• Setting and respecting appropriate boundaries
• Telling and “getting” jokes
• Finding tools to ease anxiety and self-regulate
• Understanding idioms
• Finding creative ways to deal with teasing, bullying, and cyber-bullying
• Exploring deeper emotional relationships
• Practicing job skills
• Prioritizing self-care and personal appearance
• Embracing flexibility, spontaneity, imagination, and playfulness