Theater for Audiences That Don’t Like Surprises

You are assigned your own cast member, who will escort you to the performance space and sit next to you throughout the show.

Even by the standards of immersive theater, “Up and Away” promises to be distinctive. Created by the theater company Trusty Sidekick, it is for young people on the autism spectrum.

Whether to take an autistic child to the theater is a difficult question. At a recent Broadway performance of “The King and I,” audience members grumbled about a disruptive child, prompting one actor to express his own frustration on Facebook. “When did we as theater these workshops, Jonathan Shmidt Chapman, Trusty Sidekick’s artistic director, said. Drew Petersen’s script was inspired by “Around the World in 80 Days.”

“We were really struck by this character of Phileas Fogg, who actually displays some very stereotypical autistic behavior,” Mr. Chapman said. “He’s setting off on this journey literally around the whole globe, going to these beautiful and exotic places, and all he’s focused on is getting there on time and finishing the route.”

Mr. Chapman said the focus on children with autism was uncharted territory. “As a theater maker, it’s sort of the opposite of what you want to do, because you want to surprise your audience, and with this audience, the general practice is that they need everything up front,” he explained.

The show begins with a video that explains what to expect. The eight audience members will meet the cast in the lobby and have time to acclimate before they are led into a solarium. The group will then head into the performance space, where hot-air balloons are set up. One is for the show’s musicians and the others are for audience members to sit, two per balloon, in soft chairs, with their guardians behind them and a cast member next to them. Any child who wants to leave may simply wander back to the solarium; his or her personal cast member will go along, leaving the other actors to adapt the story.

“One of the tenets we felt was really important is that there is no right way to experience it,” Mr. Chapman said. “The moment we’re setting an expectation of the way a child is meant to behave, we’ve got it wrong.”