She received a grant to help bring to light the abuse people with developmental disabilities face.

Awareness Theater’s new play, which focuses on such abuse, is being presented at schools, senior centers, and workshops. The group has traveled to New York City. Anderson wants the play to be seen by people who work in social service agencies, police departments and women’s rape crisis centers to help workers there know how to respond. "Speaking for Ourselves" will be performed Tuesday on local cable TV, and next month in Montpelier for Disability Awareness Day.

"Everybody, regardless of ability, deserves an opportunity to express themselves creatively," said Alex Chirelstein, executive director of VSA Arts of Vermont. "Everybody’s got a soul."

"Emily has a unique ability to inspire adults with developmental disabilities and assist them in expressing themselves," he said. "She’s tremendously talented, and she’s got a very good heart."

"Speaking for Ourselves" is a series of vignettes, each dealing with a specific aspect of abuse.

"When we started to sit down and talk (about the play), every single person had been abused," Anderson said. "One woman couldn't handle it. It hit too close to home."

The woman, Natalie Sinkew, remains in the company. She calls herself a "professional paper-shredder at IDX" and serves as the narrator of "Speaking for Ourselves."

Standing before a painted backdrop that changes with each of the play’s six segments, Sinkew announces the type of abuse that will be the focus of the scene -- physical; verbal; emotional; sexual; exploitation and neglect.

Struggling with her lines and without a script, Sinkew needs prompting from Anderson to define these terms-- with one exception: sexual abuse.

"When you are touched when and where you don’t want to be," Sinkew said. Then, in a stage whisper, she ad-libbed: "That’s the one that’s easy to remember."

Lines such as Sinkew’s also remind Anderson that several years after leaving Bread and Puppet, a political and innovative troupe in its own right, she is pushing the boundaries of political theater.

"Putting people with developmental disabilities on stage is one of the most political things I can do," she said. "You don’t see people with developmental disabilities on stage in a positive light."

"It’s a stigmatized population. The general public thinks of someone who is drooling, dirty with their pants down. This is a chance to see people with developmental disabilities as individuals -- people who are funny and goofing around, people who have interesting things to say."

Anderson traces her ability to connect with people with disabilities to her childhood, when she spent much time with her maternal grandparents, both of whom were deaf. She is quick to say her grandparents did not perceive themselves to be disabled.

Yet the experience of growing up with them helped her discover at an early age different ways of communicating with people, skills she brings to her work with the actors in Awareness Theater.

"I was always aware of their difference, but also really valued their difference," Aderson said. "And I didn’t find that they were lacking anything."

Theater of Life

This kind of acceptance and inclusion is evident in her work with Awareness Theater.

At rehearsals she is keenly focused and almost always smiling, keeping the theatrical momentum alive in ways subtle and plain: She hums "Amazing Grace" through scene changes, making do while her accordion is in the shop. She provides the actors with small bells, props to jingle to alert the audience to pay attention. She prompts cast members who have forgotten lines, or reminds them to address the audience -- all within the confines of the performance.

"I’m working on my own internal energy that goes with making a show, and these guys have a different energy level, their lives have been plodding along," she said. "(But) I have a high standard and they’ve been able to rise to it through repetition. People are finding their own stage on time. That has to happen."

The company has grown closer, not only from rehearsals and performances but also through shared adventures -- events and road trips.

Anderson remembered a party after a performance at a New York City workshop. The men mingled with hipster artists from the Lower East Side. Awareness actor Richard Lawrence, a 63-year-old former farmhand who lives in Essex, spent the evening trying to sell his paintings.

"Now I got my own camera," said Lawrence, who plays an angel in "Speaking for Ourselves," "And, my own paints." He has a knack for theater, Anderson said, whether adding small embellishments to his part or knowing exactly when the set should be taken down -- even if he can’t do it himself.

"At Bread and Puppet we would say of certain people, ‘They’ve got it,’" Anderson said. "Richard’s got it."

For Anderson, this is the ultimate satisfaction.

"The challenge is finding that comfortable place between challenging people and accepting their limitations," Anderson said. "And these guys really need to be challenged."