The Wonderful World of Backlight Productions

The first performance from Backlight Productions wasn’t staged under glittering lights or backed by a professional orchestra. It was in 2011 in the upstairs processing room of a thrift store with Melissa Smith’s love of the arts — and the people around her.

Smith worked at the thrift store alongside numerous coworkers with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

“One of the girls I worked with loved musical theater, loved everything theater. She wanted to be a star on Broadway, and I thought, ‘Well, why can’t she be?’” Smith recalls.

With a script she wrote (inspired by Cinderella and a handful of fellow employees as castmates), Smith and her friend rehearsed in the store for their first performance. Their debut was to an audience of 40 people in a local church’s youth room — and it was enough for her to realize this was just the beginning.

“Everybody would invite their friends, and then we would meet on Mondays after the store closed. I would find a fairy tale, write a script and we would rehearse then perform.”

What started as Smith helping a friend chase a dream slowly grew into something much bigger: Backlight Productions, a nonprofit where people with and without disabilities take center stage together.

Building a Stage

Smith grew up engulfed in the arts. She attended college on a classical piano scholarship and earned a degree in Music Theory and Composition. Her passion for performance and her belief that everyone deserves a place on stage led her to found Backlight.

“Backlight started because I realized when I was working at the thrift store how a lot of these folks graduate from high school, and then there’s just nothing for them,” explains Smith, who also acts as Backlight’s executive director. “That was where my heart was all those years — it was a side job that I took and I fell in love with the community.”

Although she didn’t have formal training to work with individuals with IDD, she didn’t let that stop her. By 2013, as the club’s popularity grew, Smith saw untapped potential in the performers and program itself. But she needed a way to generate sustainable funding — that’s when she decided to be a nonprofit organization.

Those next few years were a whirlwind. In 2018, Backlight premiered their first production alongside professional actors with Romeo & Juliet. The next year, they put on their first full-length Broadway musical, The Wizard of Oz. As Backlight hit its stride, Smith felt there was still more to come. In 2020 she saw the next major shift.

“For the first time, we had the staffing capacity and the momentum financially to be able to continue adding more classes. Being able to hire a third full-time employee was life changing,” she shares.

In addition to expanding class options, Backlight was ready to develop the next generation.

Enter “Backlight Kids”

With Backlight for adults in full force, opening a division for kids under 18 felt like a natural next step.

“Something neat about Backlight is that you can’t age out. The friendships that get made are so profound and deep,” continues Smith. “I’ve known some of these guys for 15 years. It’s like, for the first time in a lot of their lives, they have best friends. They feel like they have a place where they belong.”

Smith dreamt about the adults in the group.

“I thought about all those years that they were kids, when they didn’t have that community. And I realized, ‘How cool would it be if they built that community early on?’”

Backlight Kids was officially launched in 2024. Kids qualify to join at age 7, and once they turn 18, can make the move to adult Backlight classes.

Investing in kids from a young age can lead to meaningful growth in confidence, communication and social development. Working alongside trained staff and specialists in areas like behavioral and speech therapy, they are gently guided to find their voice. Through acting, singing and movement, they practice projection, facial expression and emotional regulation in a supportive, low-pressure environment.

“The stories that we get to hear; it’s every teacher’s dream. We’re giving kids a chance to try hard things and saying you can do this. We believe in you. Naturally, through that experience, they’re proving to themselves and everyone around them that they’re capable,” Smith says.

At Backlight, everyone’s given the chance to be integrated into some of the biggest shows of the season. And even better, Backlight Kids is open to all children.

“My daughter, who doesn’t have a disability, is fitting right in,” adds Smith. “She’s learning content that is equally as challenging as it would be elsewhere. We focus on getting really great stage experience and learning how to be a kind person, while also enjoying the arts and performing.”

Everyone Plays a Part

Smith and her team are mighty, but the investment from the community makes their students unstoppable. From professional actors to high school interns and generous donors, everyone plays a role in making the spotlight accessible to all.

Since their first partnership with pros in 2018, Backlight has worked with theaters like Studio Tenn and the Nashville Children’s Theatre. Today, professional actors audition for paid roles in Backlight shows — not just to perform, but to empower others.

Backlight also leans on interns from local high schools. They learn ensemble parts and are paired with Backlight performers as “buddies,” helping with scripts, costumes, and stage cues, while gaining meaningful experience in empathy and inclusion.

“A lot of our folks feel like those interns are their peers,” says Smith. “They’re like, ‘Those are my people!’ We try to involve youth, we try to involve pros, and in that way, we can still keep our classes more catered to people with disabilities, but also make it inclusive.”

Currently, Backlight Kids offers musical theater, but the dream is to expand with improv comedy, dance team, songwriting and more.

But above all, no matter the growth, Smith wants Backlight Kids to act as a middle ground for children with and without disabilities to learn and grow together.

“When I think of my life growing up, I don’t remember knowing many people who had disabilities because we were kept so separate. It takes intentional efforts to find situations where you can promote those friendships. And I think this is just a really rare and powerful way to do that,” Smith says.

How to Get Involved

Backlight registration launches in the summer, with the season running September through May. For new students, after registration, an instructor sets up an introductory meeting. As there are no formal auditions for the productions, this is a vital way for the team to get a feel for what each student is looking to glean from Backlight.

“What are their strengths, struggles, and desires? Some might come in and say, ‘I don’t even want a line. I just want to try to be on stage,’” says Smith. “While others may say, ‘I want to be the star.’ We find out how much they can feasibly memorize and things along those lines so we can create their part.”

Every Backlight class season ends with a performance, allowing the students to work towards a final show. Last season, students acted as fairies and nymphs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. They also performed as hip hop fish in The Spongebob Musical — a $50,000 show performed for around 1,000 people inside the Soli Deo Center at Christ Presbyterian Academy.

This February, children will be in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And next spring, they’ll have the opportunity to perform as named characters in The Sound of Music as the von Trapp family — some of them for the entire show.

Smith recommends that interested parents attend an upcoming production.

“I think that people are initially hesitant when they hear what we do, thinking, ‘I don’t know if my son or daughter could actually do that. I don’t want them to ruin the show,’ per se,” explains Smith. “But it’s not until they see a show and talk to us that they realize, ‘Oh, you really can’t ruin the show. Everything is set up for everyone to succeed. There’s a place for everyone, really.’”

To learn more about Backlight Productions, visit backlightproductions.org.