British theater group Bamboozle made their debut in China on Friday, bringing a special play for a very special audience to Shanghai.

"Storm" was performed for six autistic children at the Shanghai Children’s Art Theater. The audience was kept small so the cast could interact with them. This is what is called “immersion theater.”

Show creator Christopher Davies said, “One of the things we wanted to do was to use psychology of understanding how people learn things to create theater and create experiences for young people with learning difficulties so that they can get access to the world. The conventional way of seeing a piece of theater is to sit in rows of seats and watch it out there. That doesn’t work for most children who’ve got severe learning difficulties or challenging forms of autism. So, we create theater where they are right up close to it.”

Cast member Nicole has been with the show for eight years. “We like to remember everybody’s name during the show," she said. "Obviously, we don’t know the children, we don’t know what they’re going to respond to. You have to be flexible, there’s always an element of surprise. Deliberately, all the parts of the show are interactive, so you’ve got the plastic bags and the waves… So if someone doesn’t like that or doesn’t respond to it or is presenting challenging behavior, we will do something to mitigate that. So if somebody is very agitated, we might just sit with them calmly, just for a period of time and see if that helps.”

The show was praised by parents who brought their children. One father said his son loved the music. “We want to let him feel the charm of music. He is also learning instruments at home: the trumpet and the piano. So he’s very interested in music”, Mr. Wang told CGTN.

The organizer, a part of the China Welfare Institute, said they are losing money to bring Bamboozle to China. “Plays like this cannot allow more than six audience members. So that means there’s no way to cover the costs. But all of this is worth it. This is the first time we have an immersive play in China, and we want Chinese play directors to get some inspirations,” said Liang Xiaoxia, general director of the Shanghai Children’s Art Theater. 

“Theater has the capacity to engage all people, I think particularly children. If we can help by sharing our methodology and thinking with theaters, with families, with schools and teachers, that would be great. One of the things we’re keen to do is sharing what we’ve discovered, and we have found ways of engaging with children with learning difficulties which seem to work the world over,” said Davies.