Producer Marya Morstad continues the “Radio mnartists” series of podcasts and KFAI radio interviews with Minnesota artists. Listen to her interview with playwright Stacey-Dinner Levin and actor Michael Paul Levin about their play, Autistic License.
Stacey-Dinner Levin and Michael Paul Levin
Photo is by George Byron Griffiths.
Pictured left to right: Amy McDonald, Michael Paul Levin and Ari Hoptman
- Autistic License (MP3)
Stacey Dinner-Levin received an MA in Human Development from St. Mary's University and a BA in both Social Work and Women's Studies from the University of Minnesota. For five years she led the PACER "Count Me In" program promoting disability awareness to schoolchildren. Two of her scripts dealing with autism and ADHD are still in use by PACER. Her one-act short "Preaching to the Choir" was part of Illusion Theater's "Festival of Lights." Her writings on autism have appeared in national newsletters and are used by physicians and support groups nationwide.
She and her husband, actor Michael Paul Levin have four boys, the eldest of whom was diagnosed with autism in 1993. "Autistic License" is Dinner-Levin’s first full-length play, and premiers at the Illusion Theater. Levin plays the role of their autistic son in the production.
Levin has performed at many theaters locally including Chanhassen, Mixed Blood, Penumbra, Park Square, Illusion, Actor's Theater of Minnesota and History Theater. His portrayal of George Gershwin in "Gershwin the Klezmer" which originated at the Park Square also toured to the San Diego Rep and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. As a writer and performer he is one of the creators of "We Gotta Bingo!" which is currently St. Paul's longest-running theatrical event. His play "The Criminal Mind" won the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre’s Playwright's Award and recently had its local premiere at Lakeshore Players.
Related Events
Autistic License
May 4-20, 2007
Illusion Theater
Hennepin Center for The Arts, 8th floor
528 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis
Box Office at 612-339-4944
www.illusiontheater.org
“This is the kind of stuff you can’t make up,” says playwright Stacey-Dinner Levin of her autobiographical play about raising a child with autism. Autistic License, first introduced to Twin Cities audiences in a workshop production at Illusion in the summer of 2005, is now a fully-staged production. “Nobody sees what goes on families with a child living with a disability. I really wanted to open it up to show what life is like day to day—both struggles and the beauty,” Levin says. I really think of this piece as a love story between a husband and wife, between a mother and a son and between a father and a son.”
The cast features Michael Paul Levin (playing his own autistic son), Amy McDonald, Allen Hamilton, Camille D'Ambrose, Ari Hoptman, Damon Brooks and Sally-Ann Wright and is directed by Peter Moore.