Backlight Productions provides opportunities for adults with special needs to gain quality education in the arts and provide significant roles before live audiences, enabling them to enhance their social skills through artistic expression and grow in confidence both on and off then stage. Backlight Productions began nine years ago in the upstairs processing center of Our Thrift Store, a Franklin-based business designed to employ people with developmental disabilities. Over time its mission has grown to integrate our arts community, giving professional companies and individuals the opportunity to use their talents and to put others in the spotlight as they perform alongside Backlight Productions’ students as equals. Today, Backlight Productions’ students are being taught in real studio space, perform shows with casts up to 40, and perform throughout the year in professional theaters for audiences up to 350 white they watch i wonder at what their original “glimmer of an idea” has become.

Training in the arts improves speech, expression, coordination and overall confidence. Tonight’s class will focus on expression and communication, using theater as a medium.

Backlight Production’s big Theater 1 production is on April 29, May 1, and May 3. Check their website for more information.