Wretches and Jabberers

Saturday, April 6
5:00 p.m.
Tickets are $8 for adults for children, military, seniors; $6 for Tampa Theatre members.

Ollibean Art for Change will present Academy Award-winning documentary director Gerardine Wurzburg and the stars of her film WRETCHES & JABBERERS: AND STORIES FROM THE ROAD at 5 p.m. Saturday, April 6. Following the film, Wurzburg will lead a 30-minute Q&A with its two main subjects, Tracy Thresher and Larry Bissonette. They will be joined by The National Center on Inclusive Education’s Mary Schuh, PhD, and 13-year-old Tampa advocate, Henry Frost.

“Ingenious documentary about real autistics” – Wall Street Journal

At A Glance: Two men with autism embark on a global quest to change attitudes about disability and intelligence.

Determined to put a new face on autism, Tracy Thresher, 42, and Larry Bissonnette, 52, travel to Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland. At each stop, they dissect public attitudes about autism and issue a hopeful challenge to reconsider competency and the future. Growing up, Thresher and Bissonnette were presumed “retarded” and excluded from normal schooling. With limited speech, they both faced lives of social isolation in mental institutions or adult disability centers. When they learned as adults to communicate by typing, their lives changed dramatically. Their world tour message is that the same possibility exists for others like themselves.

Not Rated/2011/1hr 30min/Documentary