The Penguin Project of McLean County is launching Penguin Players, a new community theater program designed for performers with disabilities who are 22 years and older.
The chapter's existing theater program, which modifies full-scale musicals for the stage, serves performers ages 10 to 24.
Director Jackie Gunderson said the upper age limit was set deliberately: many services for disabled people end at 22, often the same year other supports, therapies and social routines fall away all at once.
Setting the traditional program's cutoff at 24 gave participants a two-year buffer before joining the alumni program, allowing the actors to acclimate to the adult-style program.
Gunderson said the expansion has been years in the making, driven by demand from alumni who wanted to keep performing.
"A few of our participants found something special with Penguin Project and haven't been able to recreate that experience outside of Penguin Project," Gunderson said. "I think we had five or six just during our show weekend who were there to support our traditional program already excited about this."
Gunderson said she had noticed social and emotional regression in performers with disabilities once they aged out.
"Seeing those friends that really shined bright on our stage go and struggle to find something that is able to highlight their abilities has weighed heavy on me personally because I know what they're capable of," she said. "When they age out, they struggle to find that same kind of support and continue to grow those skills outside of being on stage."
That gap is exactly what Penguin Players is meant to close, Gunderson said, by giving adults with neurodivergent conditions a continued platform to build friendships, self-confidence, communication and language skills.
Because the new program serves only adults, its material will differ sharply from the traditional lineup.
"We want it to be adult or mature content because adults with disabilities are often infantilized or treated as children," Gunderson said. "Your competence, creativity and theatrical skill will be built in an environment where you are respected as an adult."
The mentor structure is shifting, too. Instead of the one-on-one pairing used in the traditional program, mentors — performers without disabilities — will work in teams alongside several cast members with disabilities, an approach modeled on the "unified" format used in Special Olympics programming.
"We will cast mentors as participants, as cast members," Gunderson said. "And they will support maybe two or three participants or artists in this case."
The chapter has been easing into the transition through smaller steps, including a shortened musical season and new internal committees, Gunderson said.
"One of those committees is our unrestricted access committee because our mission is providing unrestricted access to the performing arts," she said. "It was important for us to establish that having people with disabilities on our staff, on our board, in our committees was really important."
The Penguin Project began in 2004 as a single Peoria-based program. The McLean County chapter became its first replication in 2009, and the national organization now counts more than 60 chapters.
Peoria's chapter already runs an adult program, and Gunderson said McLean County has drawn on that model — with some differences planned for the first year.
A central piece of the expansion is a new partnership with Heartland Community College, which hosted the McLean County chapter's performance in 2012. The move also reflects a practical constraint: the traditional program's longtime venue, University High School in Normal, has its own fall show, and Penguin Project's use of that space depends on scheduling around the school's academic year.
"We're kind of returning home for our alumni program, and I am really uplifted by their excitement to have us back," Gunderson said.
The partnership is still taking shape. For now, Heartland will provide rehearsal and performance space, with Gunderson saying the chapter hopes to eventually build a deeper relationship that could benefit Heartland students as well.
"I'm very, very excited to say that our rehearsals and our performance, Oct. 24-25, will be at Heartland Community College," she said.
An informational meeting for prospective performers, families, volunteers and mentors is set for 7 p.m. Aug. 3 at the Bloomington Public Library. Applications will open that day, and rehearsals begin in late August, Gunderson said.
Details regarding registration, volunteer opportunities and ticket information will be announced at the meeting.
The traditional Penguin Project program will continue to rehearse and perform at University High School.
“One of the things I'm the most excited about with this is reconnecting with those penguins that we've said, once a penguin, always a penguin,” Gunderson said.
