Mom: Rhode Island theater threw out disabled girl over noise

6/18/2013

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A Massachusetts woman says she and her 5-year-old developmentally disabled daughter were thrown out of a Providence, R.I., 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, says her daughter, Nadia, suffers from a chromosome abnormality and can’t speak. Torres tells The Standard-Times that Nadia was squealing, giggling and humming along with the musical at the Providence Performing Arts Center they went to on June 2.

Theater marketing director P.J. Prokop says the family was never told to leave. He says the girl was distracting other people and was offered different seats.

Torres denies being offered different seats and says the only people bothered were the ushers.