Unfiltered Story #416605

I’m a theater kid.
When I was in middleschool, I was one of the lost boys in a production of Peter and Wendy ran by a traveling children’s theater.
I was in this musical with my older brother, who happens to have autism and ADHD (this is important). Basically, this meant he didn’t like anyone but his family and close friends in his personal space or touching him.
There was this kid (maybe like, ten) who was ALWAYS pestering everyone. For whatever reason, he took a
liking to bothering my brother. He was always poking him, stealing his props and running away with them, getting really loud up in his face, that sort of thing. When we tried complaining to the directors about it, they essentially just said “boys will be boys, he’s just a kid let him have his fun” and got mad at us when we continued to complain.
So my brother just kind of dealt with it, even if it lead to him being incredibly stressed out after rehearsal each day.
One day, Kid had been sitting in front of me, my brother, and the gal who played Captain Hook. The two of us had been pretty friendly with the captain, who also had ADHD and autism. This is when we finally managed to do something about him.

Kid was busy making noise, turning around and swatting at my brother, as usual. Clearly uncomfortable, my brother asked him (for the billionth time) to stop.
Kid ignored him. Finally, our friend had enough.

Captain: Can you knock it off??? You’ve been pestering him all week and he’s told you a thousand times to stop.

Kid: I can’t help it. I have ADHD, just let me do my thing.

Captain: You’re in MUSICAL THEATRE. We ALL have ADHD here! (Which is true, most of us did) That doesn’t give you an excuse to be a nuisance whenever you have the opportunity!

Surprisingly, the kid didn’t like being told off by someone in full Hook costume, including waving her fake hook hand about.
He was quiet for the rest of the day.