Gena Sims has many talents. She is a writer, singer, director, dancer, actor, entrepreneur, educator, advocate, and she is dedicated to community service. All these aspects of Gena are evident in her work. I was pleased to be a member of the audience when Gena performed in her play, “In the Life of a Child”. The play engaged me and touched my heart. The play shows us the inner voice and struggles of a child with autism, as well as giving flashbacks that provide an insight into the child’s mother, who receives the diagnosis and wonders what the future will be for her child. We hear the inner voice of the child both in dialogue and song. We see the way her peers react to her, and we see her dreams of how she wishes that they would reach out to her and accept her.

Gena has also created and operated an afterschool program which helps children with autism and non-autistic children. She guides them to interact with each other and play with each other, to learn how to adapt to, communicate with, and understand each other.

Gena has created a channel on YouTube, where she posts a series of vignettes around autism, depicting the struggles and adventures of people with autism, and their parents and friends. You can look for it under the title, The Autism Theater Project. These vignettes are engaging and entertaining, a great vehicle for adults and children to learn more about autism in short, relevant episodes.
Having experienced “The Voice Inside” [webseries on YouTube], I became even more conscious that we are all somewhere on the spectrums of self-awareness, with varying abilities and skills of communication. We are all on a journey to understand ourselves, and to be understood, loved and accepted by others.”