In a high hospital bed at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, 9-year-old Adriana Andrade lies propped on pillows, a bright blue stuffed bear on the bedrail above.
Her face is pale and anxious, and only a few soft wisps remain of her dark hair. She seems to have shrunk under the weight of reality, which at present consists mostly of a disease with the ponderous name of Philadelphia-chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
But then a little piece of magic happens. The door opens to admit two smiling people — this time not doctors or nurses come to do procedures. They are wearing regular hang-out clothes and their mood is decidedly playful. The tall guy with merry blue eyes and a two-week red beard has a propensity for making outrageous faces. The young woman with a blond ponytail beams at Adriana, her warmth and support palpable.
Taking up positions at each side of her bed, they invite Adriana to join them in a game. At first she seems uncertain, but musters a small smile. They start with a “number conversation,” which requires counting as if each word comes from a place of strong feeling: for example, “seven” is decisive, “eight” doubtful, “nine” sad, and “10” surprised. As they take turns, Adriana’s eyes dart from one to the other and expression creeps into her face and voice.
A conversation game that allows only questions leads to chuckles: “What’s your favorite color?” the man asks Adriana. “Do you shave?” Adriana mischievously replies.
When a couple of nurses come in and attach a new IV line, Adriana is snorting like a pig as she plays “Animal Noises” and appears barely to notice the procedure. By the time her playfellows take their leave, she and her mother (who has moved into the small hospital room with her) are both animated and giggling.
In ordinary life these magic-workers are Michael Champlin and Jennifer Chambers, actors and teaching artists with the Children’s Healing Project, a collaboration between TheatreWorks and the Lucile Packard hospital.
Every Wednesday, they work with sick children here, using little more than their own imagination, resourcefulness and acting skills. Sometimes they take along a raft of puppets, but often they conjure ideas out of the air, using the children’s own interests and sense of humor rather than props.
The program also serves patients in the Lucile Packard School, siblings of patients, and the Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program at El Camino Hospital.
“These children spend most of their time hearing about diagnosis and disease, and are facing some really frightening things,” said Chambers. “When we go in, we are two people solely focused on them — not poking, prodding or diagnosing. It’s a place where they can be themselves, and it makes them feel special.”
The Children’s Healing Project was the brainchild of Mary Sutton, TheatreWorks’ director of education and community outreach, whose own work as a theater artist in a variety of settings taught her how powerfully healing the arts can be. She and her staff experimented with several programs for at-risk youth and other vulnerable populations before taking a pilot program to Lucile Packard around four years ago. They discovered it could have a profoundly beneficial effect on severely ill children, Sutton said.
The program receives funding from several philanthropic organizations, including the Sand Hill Foundation, American Century Foundation, and ALZA Corp.; and is being developed as a replicable program for other hospitals.
“This program touches kids in such an immediate way,” Sutton said. “We get very positive feedback from parents, doctors and nurses.”
‘A loose plan’
On one morning, Champlin and Chambers are gearing up for a session with a group of half a dozen children at the Lucile Packard School, where three teachers from the Palo Alto Unified School District help students keep up with lessons while recuperating from operations, awaiting organ transplants, or undergoing treatments for cancer, cystic fibrosis or lupus. Though some of the kids are clearly compromised by illness, today their faces shine with eagerness.First, Champlin suggests they think about becoming their favorite food: a taco with cheese and lettuce, for example. Having become tacos, pizzas and apples, the younger children warm up their faces. Champlin, who uses his own mobile face to sometimes hilarious effect, tells the kids to open their faces as wide as they can — then to close them up as tight as possible. (Making faces can feel as good as exercise to a child who is unable to move much, and even immune-compromised patients wearing masks join in.)
Soon, there’s laughter, clapping and squeals of delight. Then there’s a scenario involving some bizarre characters in a grocery store. A star of the scene is a “poopin’ puppy” (the adjective got tacked on when the word “puppy” came out a bit distorted) played by Logan Sopeland, who is awaiting a heart transplant. For now he’s down on all fours, beaming, along with his brother Trent.
“We see kids on the brink of tears start laughing,” said Cammy Sunde, who teaches the elementary class at Lucile Packard. “We’ve even had kids in excruciating pain who wanted to come.”
Whether in the classroom or at a bedside, Champlin and Chambers deftly engage children at whatever level they’re at, sometimes bringing whole families into improvisations.
“We have a loose plan, but have to take into account who’s in the group, and their physical and mental condition,” said Chambers, an actress who also has a degree in psychology with a concentration in drama therapy. Sometimes, a child takes on the role of director, while she and Champlin act out zany scenes concocted by all of them together.
“We might be two cowboys, on the beach, eating pizza. The kid can tell us to rewind, go back in time and do it again, or they have the power to stop it.”
This sense of control is therapeutic, Sunde said. “Here they have some power. In the hospital they don’t have that.”
Absurdist theater
That sense sometimes comes through what appears to be merry chaos. At a session with junior high and high school students, levels of absurdity skyrocket as Champlin and a boy wearing a dress-up wig act transform themselves into conjoined twins dancing and panicking at a McDonald’s in space — while improvising a dialogue that includes the words “chocolate,” “flabbergasted,” and “zap!” Even a couple of students who started the session looking skeptical succumb to hilarity.“This really brings kids out of their shell. Kids who are unhappy, depressed and withdrawn can forget their problems,” hospital high school teacher Kathy Ho said.
Barbara Sourkes, director of pediatric palliative care at Lucile Packard, is also a supporter of the program.
“The biggest challenge for a child with any kind of medical condition is to try and be a normal child and not become the illness,” she said. The performances, she added, “cut right through and go to the essence of the person.”
INFORMATION:
For more about the Children’s Healing Project, visit www.theatreworks.org
This story originally appeared in the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice’s sister paper.
