Community means everything to us at ABLE. Our community has grown over the past 9 years largely by word of mouth. People find us, and then they introduce their friends, or colleagues, or - in the case of today’s featured actor - their family into the mix as well. Today, meet actor Sandia and facilitator Sedona - the Coleman sisters!
Actor Sandia Coleman joined the ABLE community in 2019 after learning about our ensemble program through friends. She feels a sense of excitement before each rehearsal, and finds the ABLE community to be welcoming, festive and fun! “My favorite thing about being in the ensemble is relationships and opportunities,” Sandia explains.
Sandia hanging backstage at our Invention Showcases this spring - photo by Justin Barbin
At ABLE, we strive to create a space where both participants and volunteers can truly be themselves, something that is especially evident in the ensemble devising process. While ABLE sometimes adapts classical stories, like our recent production of Frankenstein, we also invite ensembles to create their own, original work inspired by their personal experiences. Sandia looks forward to telling stories in this way, and has appeared in numerous devised projects onstage and online (pictured below). “I like devising my own lines by myself,” she says. “And I want to try new things. I work on some parts of my lines with the facilitators to help me focus.”
One of the most memorable ABLE performances for both Sandia and Sedona was 2019’s Are You Still Watching. Sandia devised a scene about the first year that Sedona moved away to college. The separation was hard for the sisters, and their other sister Serena as well. “We’re definitely a unit, and that was tough,” Sedona explains. “One of the ways that helped Sandia work through it was writing about it in the piece that she devised. I definitely feel that way when I'm able to write about something that I'm going through. Coming home and getting to see that show, and not just Sandia's story, but all of the stories that the actors brought to the stage and performing pieces that came from them in their own words was so much fun. They brought authenticity and vulnerability, but also such fun and silliness as well.”
Sandia (center) and her sisters celebrate after an ABLE performance
Not long after attending that performance, Sedona joined the ABLE community as a volunteer facilitator in 2021. “For the longest time, I was searching for a way to combine my love of theatre with my interest in working with the disability community and making theatre more accessible to both audience members and artists. ABLE is such an amazing intersection of that,” Sedona explains. She went on to feature ABLE and our accessible programs in her capstone research project for her bachelor’s degree.
““The ABLE community is so full of joy, of talent, of acceptance, and creativity. It is an amazing place to build confidence and gain experience, whether you want to act, you want to teach, you want to work backstage or really anything. I think theater in general is an amazing way to build community and to bring people together. But ABLE specifically is such a special place for that. ABLE is just doing such an amazing job and just such great work in terms of making theater accessible and arts in general.”
The Coleman family remains actively involved A.B.L.E.’s ensembles - Sandia even featured the family dogs in a puppet show as part of our spring Invention Cabaret. But she has her sights set on playing Hamlet - inspired by her sister.
One of our core beliefs at ABLE is that everyone deserves access to creative opportunities in a welcoming community. We prioritize accessibility for participants, volunteers, and audiences. To ensure our programs and performances remain financially accessible, ABLE offers pay-what-you-can pricing for program registration and ticketing for public events. We offer travel and technology assistance so volunteers and participants can get safely to and from rehearsals.
ABLE relies on individual donations to keep our programs open to all. Program registration fees cover less than 20% of our actual program costs, and for our 2024-25 season, more than 25% of our participants opted for a free or reduced cost program registration. In addition, ticket sales for our shows account for less than 5% of our annual budget.
With today’s uncertain financial landscape, your contributions are more important now than ever before. Please keep our programs financially accessible and help our community grow by making a donation today to help us reach our goal of raising $30,000 during our Set the Stage Annual Campaign.
