Entertainer and autism therapist Lynette Louise laughs when recalling one of the more memorable compliments she has received for her one-woman show, "From Thing to Thing to Thing."
My ex-husband said 'You're really funny. That was really good,'" she said. "I thought 'Yeah. And you never noticed until now.'"
Louise will perform her one woman show at Hammond's Towle Theatre Saturday.
Raised in Alberta, Canada, Louise made her way to the States in 1996. She has raised eight children, six of whom are adopted and five who have been diagnosed with varying degrees of autism.
A licensed autism counselor and child facilitator, Louise is based in California and Texas. She created the Brain and Body Clinic in 2004, which treats those afflicted with autism and a variety of brain disorders with biofeedback.
Biofeedback is a form of therapy for autistic people that she says has given those afflicted a better chance to lead a productive life than other forms of autistic therapies.
"(By being treated with biofeedback), my children were new children and my men became new men," she said.
Louise began writing the words and songs that would become "Thing," subtitled "From Crazy to Sane With Biofeedback, Autism and the Brain," about two years ago. She drew upon her past experiences as a stand up comedian and actress who appeared in several films and shows in her homeland.
As she was putting pen to paper for what became her show, she knew that successfully mixing humor with autism would be no small feat.
"I wasn't sure that I could pull off brain science with, for example, a joke about flatulence," she said. "It was no easy task. But I wanted there to be something for everyone."
Her show made it's debut last spring in Hollywood and she has performed it, by her own estimation, more than four dozen times throughout the country.
"I wanted to make it entertaining and funny and light and poignant," she said of "Thing." "But at the same time, it's important to me that when the people leave, if they have any challenges in their home, whether it's anxiety or schizophrenia or autism, I want them to be able to gain something that's going to make their lives easier."
