Theatre lessons where young people with autism learn to improvise are a great success in Eindhoven. Through the lessons, participants learn to engage in conversations more easily, to respond more spontaneously and to improve their social skills.
Three girls are participating in the program this weekend. On stage, they do an improvisation exercise: they have to portray professions. Tarja is given the assignment to portray a construction worker, without thinking time on how to do it. “I can’t get this thing to work!”, she shouts angrily while pretending to be on a construction machine. Then the teacher calls out that she has to play a construction worker who feels the emotion ‘joy’. The mood changes immediately. “It’s working again!” Tarja shouts happily after a few seconds. The audience laughs.
Impulsive
The autists and other neuro-diverse people learn to improve their social skills through the exercises, and as a result gain more self-confidence. “I myself and those around me notice that I am a bit more absent in daily life and that I engage in less conversation”, student Romy says. “You learn to enter into a conversation impulsively, to participate and to say what you think”.
InterActing was founded in Amsterdam. Last summer, the organisation also came to Eindhoven. The bilingual lessons are given in the Social Hub and sometimes in Lab1. After a few weeks, twenty children had already signed up.
According to theatre teacher Jake, Eindhoven was an obvious new location for InterActing. “Research has shown that there are quite a few children with autism in Eindhoven; more than in other regions of the country. This could be because there are many knowledge workers in Eindhoven, such as physicists, mathematicians or people with technological jobs”.
Family members
The fact that InterActing’s approach is effective is evident from the reactions of the parents in the audience. They are pleasantly surprised by what they see. “I didn’t know what I was seeing”, the mother of student Janne tells. She has rarely seen her daughter react so spontaneously, and then on stage. “They started acting in English, which I was already surprised by. When they played an entire scene, I thought: that can’t be made up! But it was”.
Video (in Dutch) from improv theatre:
Young people who want to participate in the theatre lessons can register via the website of the Amsterdam theatre group.
For more information: Workshop Eindhoven – 24 mei 2025
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
