Say Anything

Watch actor Taro Alexander stride across the stage and say his lines with flair, unintimidated by the large audience. It's hard to imagine that for most of his life, simply speaking to a single person filled him with anxiety and embarrassment. Taro has stuttered since he was five years old. He learned early on to mask his problem by using only words that wouldn't trigger his stutter. "I felt so alone, keeping this big secret."

Taro became so skilled at hiding his stutter, he acted in high-school productions. Eventually he landed a role in a national tour of Lost In Yonkers, followed by four years in the Broadway hit Stomp.

But the coping strategy he developed in his youth wore on him. His edited speech kept him from expressing his true self. At 27, Taro decided, "I'm going to say whatever I want to say and however it comes out, it comes out."

The decision was liberating. He felt freed to pursue a long-held dream: starting Our Time Theatre company, an artistic home for kids who stutter.

"Here, they can be themselves and talk however they want to. They won't be put down or cut off or rushed," says Taro. Teens and preteens learn all aspects of musical theater—playwriting, composing, acting, dancing and singing. The students put together and perform their own full-length production for the public at an off-Broadway theater. Senior members create and direct a one-act play performed by professional actors. Kids can also learn how to record a CD in a studio. Film- and book-making classes are in the works.

"Whether you stutter or not, it's hard not to be moved by the courage and creativity and energy of these kids," says Taro. "It's a family. People who stutter feel isolated, so to feel part of a community and accepted is great. We're at the tip of the iceberg of what we're going to do." That's easy to believe—any way you say it.