RHYTHM AND AUTISM is my one-woman stage musical about how my stimmy fixation on rhythm got me through until I could find out the entire truth about myself. It features some songs familiar to Normal Fauna fans, as well as new songs and special material (including spoken word/comedy) written just for this show!
I feel that this show brings together everything I'm about and everything I can do, and will help other neurodivergent people feel seen, as well as being a total kick for even the most neurotypical audience member. It's a trip through the pop culture cheese of the 1960s and 1970s, as filtered through the signal processing of an autistic girl who didn't know she was autistic until much later.
One of my autistic obsessions is reading musician memoirs, and I read one after another after another of white male boomer rock stars saying something like, "I saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and I knew immediately that I wanted to do that too." My "Beatles on Ed Sullivan moment" was Hannah Gadsby's Douglas. Except I didn't see it and say, "I want to do edgy, inventive standup comedy about autism too." Instead, I said, "That's it. I want to be the Hannah Gadsby of music."
Soon after that, I began to realize that the "shut up and sing" kinds of situations I'd performed in before only told half the story about me. The other half was about what I said in between songs, and it wasn't just "I wrote this song because I had a kombucha fart in the elevator after a job interview and it reminded me of my 7th grade prom" kind of stuff, it was an actual story of transformation. Then it all came together in my mind. I can't wait for you all to see it!
I also have created some exciting and fun community outreach programs! Click the drop-down menu above or just click here for a downloadable PDF.
Click here for videos of full songs that appear in RHYTHM AND AUTISM! Calendar of upcoming shows is below.
If you want to know more about RHYTHM AND AUTISM, sign up for updates below, or write me at andee@normalfaunamusic.com!
