Students of all abilities worked all semester to put on a play with the Unified Theater class at Lakewood High School.
LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Stories from ‘The Jungle Book’ played out in real life at Lakewood High School Wednesday evening.
The school’s Unified Theater class put on the play after working all semester to nail every line.
“Unified Theater is a really unique class at Lakewood,” said Torrey Lin Weiner, a senior at the school and vice president of Lakewood High’s Theater Company.
The class is split half-and-half between neurotypical and neurodivergent students.
“Some of the kids in unified they work with coaches, so neurotypical coaches work with neurodivergent students and we, you known, it’s just a really cool community,” Lin Weiner said.
Atticus Dorfman, a freshman at the school is teamed up with his coach, senior Nathaniel Olivares.
“I’m kind of here to in a way kind of teach, but also just be his friend,” Olivares said.
Dorfman plays a turtle in ‘The Jungle Book’, and said his costume is his favorite part.
“Has it been fun for you, Atticus?” Olivares asked.
Senior Jack Worley got to take the class his freshman year, but because of the pandemic he didn’t really get to truly experience it until this year.
“This is my favorite class probably of all of school,” he said. “I like the people here. There’s just something about this group that I like more than any other.”
Chase Nair is a junior. She’s in charge of maintaining the energy levels of her castmates.
“If your energy is low, like your voice or your movement, you might put the audience to sleep,” she said.
She rates everyone from a scale of red, ‘very very low,’ she said, to green ‘very hyper’.
Nair’s friend Anna Rinehart said her favorite part of the class is it’s unpredictability.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” the Lakewood High School senior said. “Especially later in the semester, I’ve gotten a lot closer with a lot of the actors and there’s just so many fun moments.”
Lin Weiner produced a documentary about the class and it’s production of ‘The Jungle Book.’ He said he wants to show every school that has a theater program that there’s no reason not to add a unified class to it.
“In the next few years I hope that the community continues to grow and the people involved know that they’re doing something really special,” he said.
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