NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A woman says she and her 5-year-old developmentally disabled daughter were thrown out of a theater during a "Beauty and the Beast" performance because the girl was making giggling and humming noises she makes when she's happy.
Samantha Torres, of New Bedford, said her daughter, Nadia, suffers from a chromosome abnormality and can't speak. Nadia was squealing, giggling and humming along with the Disney musical at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Rhode Island on June 2 when the entire party, including Torres' other child and a nurse, were told to leave, she said.
"They did not ask me to leave. They told me I had to leave," Torres told The Standard-Times (http://bit.ly/1aowedp).
Theater marketing director P.J. Prokop denied that.
He said the girl was distracting other theater-goers and the group was offered different seats. Audience members "were turning around; they were looking; they were also kind of gesturing," Prokop said.
"It is the theater's responsibility to try and ensure that everyone can hear and have a good time," he said.
Torres said she was never offered the chance to relocate. The group was already sitting near the rear of the 3,100-seat theater and the only people bothered by Nadia were the ushers, she said.
Torres plans to take up the theater on an offer to conduct sensitivity training for ushers.
