Our Time Theatre Company is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an artistic home for young people (ages 8-18) who stutter. Our Time is unique in its year-round effort to work directly with youth who stutter, creating a safe and nurturing community that uses artistic expression to build confidence and self-acceptance. At Our Time, participants can transform the fear and shame associated with stuttering into confidence and self-esteem. All New York City programs are offered to young people who stutter free of charge.

Description and/or History:
Stuttering is a common speech disorder that can cause extreme emotional distress and isolation in kids who feel stigmatized by others for being different. Our Time’s creative programming brings positive change to kids who stutter and helps them integrate more fully into the everyday world. While there are organizations nationwide that support and educate families, children, and the public about this prevalent but often misunderstood communicative disorder, Our Time is unique in its year-round effort to work directly with youth who stutter, creating a safe and nurturing community that uses artistic expression to build confidence and self-acceptance in youth. The company works with kids ages 8 to 18, both boys and girls, from a wide range of socioeconomic and racial backgrounds including African-American, Latino, Indian, Asian, and Caucasian. Each season, Our Time kids work together to write and perform their own plays that are presented in full-scale productions in public theaters as well as at arts and speech-language conferences throughout the country.

Our Time succeeds for two principal reasons. First, Our Time has weekly programming that creates a unique, creative environment in which young people who stutter are supported unconditionally. Second, Our Time uses the performing arts to turn stuttering inside out. While people who stutter can be inclined to guard against personal interaction, up to and including becoming fully mute, Our Time lets kids showcase themselves and their stuttering in a very outward manner – through live performances, TV appearances, and music recordings – thereby increasing the public’s understanding and acceptance of stuttering.

Our Time’s two central programs differ mainly in duration and the populations they serve. The organization’s signature program, Our Time NYC, is a year-round program that serves 30-40 youth who stutter living in the Tri-State area. The organization’s second program – Camp Our Time – is a one-week, sleep-away arts camp that is designed to make the organization’s unique programming more accessible to those who do not live in or near New York City or who cannot make a yearlong commitment.

From October until June, Our Time NYC participants meet on Saturdays at a rehearsal studio in midtown Manhattan to learn the basics of acting, playwriting, songwriting, singing and movement, all with the aim of writing and performing original plays and music. The final product is presented in full-scale productions in June at an Off-Broadway theater. The teens (ages 13-18) collaborate as a group to create an ensemble play or musical, while the pre-teens (ages 8-12) work in pairs on more modestly sized pieces. I teach this program alongside an Associate Artistic Director, a Musical Director, an Associate Musical Director, and a small group of professional theatre artists who volunteer their time. Our Time NYC also offers another production opportunity for three to four senior members of the teen group who are given the challenge of writing and directing their own one-act plays which are performed by professional actors. In addition, professional playwrights and directors volunteer as advisors to the teens. The one-act plays take place in December, and each performance is followed by question-and-answer sessions where the young playwrights and directors illuminate for the audience the creative process and life experiences of young people who stutter. To spread awareness of the organization and issues that relate to people who stutter, Our Time NYC tours during the summer, attending and presenting at speech-language conferences and arts festivals. Periodically, Our Time NYC members go into a recording studio to archive original songs they have written on a professionally produced compact disc that is distributed and sold to the public.

Our Time’s newest program – Camp Our Time – is designed to open up the organization’s programming to more young people who stutter, as well as their siblings, cousins, and friends, from all over the world. Launched in the summer of 2008, this one-week, sleep-away program infuses a traditional camp experience with the organization’s distinctive theatre-arts programming, providing a fun, supportive environment for an even greater diversity of kids. Camp Our Time also serves the important function of teaching siblings, cousins, and friends who do not stutter how to better support their relative or friend who stutters year-round.
Our Time was first incarnated in 2001 as an educational outreach program of Naked Angels, an award-winning Off-Broadway theatre company. Founded by Taro Alexander, an experienced director, teacher, and performer, Our Time Theatre Company became an independent 501(c)(3) organization in 2003 and now has an annual operating budget of around $400,000, three paid staff, and over 50 volunteers. Mr. Alexander, the company’s Artistic Director, is himself a person who has stuttered since the age of five and who knows firsthand the anxiety and isolation that stuttering can cause a young person, as well as the outlet that the performing arts provide.

Contact people:

Taro Alexander, Executive Director, (212) 414-9696, (email) Justin Wynn, (212) 414-9696, (email) Lauren Todd, General Manager, (212) 414-9696, (email)

Address:

330 West 42nd St. 12th Fl New York, NY 10036 (See a map)

Directions:

Between 8th & 9th Aves, next to the Port Authority.   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: A C E at 42nd St.,   Walk distance (in minutes): 3