Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) announces a live town hall, Understanding and Respecting Neurodivergent Artists, on Tuesday, November 25, 2025. Doors open at 6:30pm for networking and roundtable introductions of everyone in the room – come prepared with your best 20-second summary of who you are, and what you need. The Open Forum will start at 7:00pm. Tickets are free for TRU members and $15 for non-members, with a $5 ticket option available to anyone who needs it. Simultaneous streaming is available for those outside of NYC. For more information, visit here.
TRU conversations continue about issues of current cultural significance, with a particular focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. This month, we turn our attention to what is perhaps the least understood and most often dismissed aspect of individual diversity: Neurodiversity. Very broadly defined, neurodiversity can cover the constellation of Autism, ADHD, OCD, Bipolar, Borderline Personality, and more. For centuries, society has always been more inclined to "cure" or "control" neurodivergence rather than celebrate and accept it. Today, with further calls from the government to seek a “cure” for Autism and a continued lack of understanding of how neurodivergent minds work, it’s more challenging than ever for neurodivergence to attain acceptance and respect. What is the creative process like for these individuals? How difficult is it to navigate the relationship-driven theater industry? Are there barriers that prevent an open dialogue about neurodiversity from happening? And how can we create a more welcoming environment for these artists?
The event is co-hosted by Harmon dot aut (they/she), award-winning playwright/ filmmaker/ actor (Tornado Tastes like Aluminum Sting, Electro Archipelago, Five O'Clock Dance Party, a new musical); Mario A. Gomez (he/him/él), dramaturg, theater administrator, disability justice advocate currently based in NYC; Ali MacLean, award-winning playwright/actress/TV writer, and mental health advocate (She's Not There, Wolves at the Door, TRU Voices: Final Resting Place); Dave Osmundsen, playwright (Light Switch, More of a Heart, My Brother Jake); Scott Sickles, biracial Korean American / LGBTQ / neurodivergent writer, Emmy and five-time Writers Guild of America Award winner for the daytime serial General Hospital, playwright (TRU Diversity: Marianas Trench, Pangea, The Known Universe, Tesseract, The Battlements, Composure); Jackson Tucker-Meyer (he/they), fabulously autistic playwright, filmmaker, lyricist, disability advocate based in Brooklyn. It is facilitated by TRU executive director Bob Ost.
TRU offers this as an opportunity for everyone to learn from actual experiences and find ways to support each other while exploring initiatives that might bring us closer to genuine respect and acceptance. All attendees are welcome to participate in this conversation.
Panelist Bios
HARMON DOT AUT (they/she) is a Gender Expansive/Autistic/Disabled/MENA playwright, producer & multi-hyphenate artist. A new hybrid documentary about Harmon’s life and work as an Outsider Artist, The Harmon Project, is currently in production. “A queer autistic artist who survived years of deep childhood trauma and violence returns to rural Kansas to direct an autobiographical film with a group of Neurodivergent/Disabled/Gender Expansive Actors.” An excerpt of Harmon’s award-winning short play, Space, is published in We/Us: Monologues for The Gender Minority, Smith & Kraus, edited by Debbie Lamedman. Harmon was awarded the Venturous Playwriting Fellowship for their synesthetic play, Tornado Tastes like Aluminum Sting, 2023-2025. Their play opened to raves (“Innovative”, “Blown Away”) in Summer 2024 at Contemporary American Theater Festival, under the direction of Oliver Butler. TTLAS has been nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize, 2025. TTLAS is recommended as a play for college students/teachers to read and learn from in the upcoming second edition of Jacqueline Goldfinger’s Playwriting with Purpose. Their newest play, Minden, was a semi-finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Minden had its first public reading at The Tank under the direction of Meghan Finn. Electro Archipelago is part of the Ruth Easton Series at Playwrights Center - March 3-10, 2026. Harmon is currently writing a stage adaptation of their epic prison-break novel, Crawlspace, about an imprisoned Autistic, agender kid escaping in a desperate attempt to find a loving family. Also in development, Harmon is writing and co-composing the new musical, 5 O’clock Dance Party: a fun, fizzy & sexy seaside romp. Both projects are in collaboration with and directed by Oliver Butler. Current commission: Untitled Unhoused play for Contemporary American Theater Festival. Harmon exhibited their thread drawings and performed a 20-minute selection from their solo art installation, GravyLand, for The Bearded Ladies Cabaret at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, 2024. Harmon is the Founder and Co-Director of t.h.i.n.k. at The Tank, an advocacy and career development cohort for Neurodivergent and Disabled artists at The Tank Theater, NYC. www.thetanknyc.org/think
MARIO GOMEZ (he/him/él) is a multi-hyphenate theater practitioner and administrator, a dramaturg, and educator. Mario has been an advocate for Disability Justice and Neurodivergent theater artists and has served as the International Partner Award Panel Chair with Unlimited Arts UK, the International Network VSA/Access Mentor for the Kennedy Center, the DTM Keynote Speaker for the American College Theatre Festival. He has led workshops/panels about disability, accessibility, and neurodiversity with USITT, the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, and more. You can find more about Mario in his substack "Don't Save the Galaxy".
ALI MACLEAN is a writer, actor, director, and mental health advocate in LA. She’s won/placed in over 60 competitions including winning: John Gassner, Julie Harris, SheNYCArts, O’Neill, New American Voices, Women's Playwriting Prize UK, Orchard Project, ICWP Oestreicher Award, and Lincoln Center Music Theater AACR. She has been awarded three grants from the California Coalition of the Arts. Ali’s prose won the David Sedaris Writing Prize. She finaled at O’Neill, Ojai, Moxie, Pegasus, Kitchen Dog, New American Voices, Orchard Project, Creede Rep, Garry Marshall, Parity, and Women’s Playwriting UK. Ali’s included works been produced and developed at The Road, Theatre 40, Playwrights Realm, EST/LA, Antaeus, 24 Hour Plays, Arcola UK, White Bear, Lincoln Center and Citadel of Playwrights (Resident Artist) in addition to being nominated for Broadway World Awards and MethodFest as Best Actor, Play, and Director. She’s won and screened at several film festivals, including Atlanta, Toronto, Palm Springs, Slamdance, and Gen Art. She’s a Coverfly-Endorsed screenwriter, Women In Film Mentee, with fellowships from Writers For Writers, Stowe Story Labs, RespectAbility, BlackMagic Writer’s Collective, and 1in4 Coalition. Her TV credits include MTV, VH-1, FOX, Showtime, Pop TV, and is published by Nation, Applause, and Smith & Kraus Books. A teaching artist for The Unusual Suspects Theater Company in Los Angeles, a Talent Ambassador for MTV's Mental Health Action Day, she’s on the advisory board at Peace Over Violence, a member of EST/LA, The Honor Roll, the Sundance Collective, the Dramatists Guild, and the Petco Rewards Program.
DAVE OSMUNDSEN (he/him/his) is an Autistic playwright and dramaturg whose work has been seen and developed at KCACTF Region 8, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Purple Crayon Players, Florida Studio Theatre, Sewanee Writers Conference, the William Inge Theatre Festival, Premiere Stages, the Valdez Theatre Conference, and more. A recipient of the Blank Theatre and Ucross Foundation’s inaugural Future of Playwriting Prize, his play Light Switch received its world premiere with Spectrum Theatre Ensemble in April 2022 and received a Jeff Award winning production in Chicago in 2024. Light Switch was also the 2021 Distinguished Achievement recipient of the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, an Honorable Mention finalist for BAPF 2021, longlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award, a finalist for the 2020 Carlo Annoni Playwriting Prize, and a semi-finalist for the 2020 National Playwrights Conference. His plays have been published by The Dionysian, Canyon Voices, Exposition Review, Fresh Words: Contemporary One Act Plays Volume 5, and Broadway Play Publishing. MFA: Arizona State University.
JACKSON TUCKER-MEYER (he/they) is a fabulously autistic genderqueer playwright, screenwriter, theatre artist, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. Jackson's play Gifted & Talented was part of the Tank's inaugural t.h.i.n.k. at the Tank Reading Series in 2025. Jackson's play The Perfection of the Donut was a semifinalist for the Playwrights Foundation's 2023 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and was performed at the Tank in 2024. Jackson's film Satan Cured My Autism won Best Mockumentary at the Museum of the Moving Image's inaugural Marvels of Media Awards in 2022. Jackson's play Banana Guy and Banana Girl with Banana Dreamz in a Krazy World was part of Roundabout Theatre Company's inaugural Reverb Theatre Arts Festival in 2021. As a lyricist, Jackson is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop Advanced Cohort. As an arts administrator, Jackson is Director of Programs for Actionplay, a neuroinclusive theatre nonprofit. In this capacity, Jackson has produced and assisted in the creation of four devised musicals: The Surface (or, That One Time Atlantis Washed Up On the Beach), OMG It's Magic School, Total Bummer Summer: A Paranormusical, and Dimensions & Dragons.
SCOTT C. SICKLES is an internationally produced, LGBTQ+, American Born Mixed Korean, neurodivergent (ADHD) writer. Plays specifically portraying neurodivergence include Marianas Trench (Leviathan Lab), Morning After the Melee (Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, City Theatre in Miami), Seaside Tragedies (Seven Devils finalist), Oubliette, and the Bascom & Isaac plays. Several of his titles are published through Next Stage Press. He serves on the TRU Board. Sickles is also a two-time Emmy Award winner for the daytime drama General Hospital.
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty-three-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.
TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings about the arts, and monthly Town Halls about current social issues; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices (adapting short plays into films), Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.
Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Polaris North, 245 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001, United States
