By Justin Bigos, Vermont Standard Staff Writer
“Unscripted Lives,” a documentary about Woodstock’s Zack’s Place, is getting the film festival treatment — and already racking up some impressive awards. Set in the special-needs community enrichment center founded by Dail Frates and Norm Frates, Jr. in 2006, the film follows seven Zack’s Place participants, as well as various citizens and officials of the Woodstock area community, as they prepare for roles in one of the organization’s annual musicals, “Beauty and the Beazt.”
The film was written and directed by Jim Sadwith, a former Hollywood director who moved to Woodstock with his family in 1998, and who has written and directed several shows for Zack’s Place over the years. Sadwith told the Standard that after directing a few musicals for Zack’s Place, he “fell in love” with the participants of the community. “Each time I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I should be filming this. It’s so dramatic. A great film is great characters, and these guys are great characters.’ So I just felt like the audience could get to meet them the way I met them through this process [of directing them]. Every production of a play is a drama, anyway. There’s [the question], ‘Are we going to do it? Can we actually get from beginning to end without falling off the high wire?’”
In the spring of 2021, Sadwith took that question and his proposal to the Frateses — and got the green light to begin production. “With the board’s approval, it was ‘all hands on deck.’ From auditions to professional film crews, the experience was both rigorous and exhilarating,” Dail Frates told the Standard. With a crew of students from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where Sadwith had been teaching since 2018, and with the community support of Woodstock, the production of the film was a success.
Tanner Dow (The Beazt) and Tesha Thibodeau (Beauty) finish their song “Stuck on You” during the staging of Zack’s Place musical, “Beauty and the Beazt.” Courtesy of Jim Sadwith
“Think about ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ said Sadwith, explaining why this archetypal story was such a perfect choice to adapt for a production at Zack’s Place. “The Beast is shunned by society until you get to know him. When he’s loved, he turns into a handsome prince. In a moment in our [version, ‘Beauty and the Beazt’], where finally, our heroine declares she loves Beast, he doesn’t turn into a handsome prince. And one of the characters says, ‘Aren’t you going to turn into a handsome prince?’ He says, ‘No, I was born this way.’ And then they all dance and sing to ‘Born this Way’ by Lady Gaga.”
In “Beauty and the Beazt,” the character “Another Handsome Prince” is played by 34-year-old Patrick (“Pat”) Green of Lebanon, N.H., who has performed in approximately ten plays in his ten years of being part of the Zack’s Place community. Reached by the Standard, Pat and his mother, Lisa Green, described the joys of Pat’s auditioning and performing in the role. “It was a nice experience,” said Pat. “It made me feel special.”
“It gives people an intimate look at the lives of several people, in particular, who participate in Zack’s Place, and it’s a whole range of disabilities. A lot of people don’t know what it’s like, unless you have a loved one who has a disability,” said Lisa of the film and its impact on her and audiences who get to see it. “I even cried after watching it. It was just so beautiful, very heartwarming and inspiring. And the things that they go through — to put on a play, to memorize their lines, to come to all the practices, and be very professional as much as they can — it was so well done. I hope that everyone walks away with a really nice, warm feeling that there’s a special place in our community that helps people with various disabilities live their best lives and overcome challenges and shine well.”
While undeniably a feel-good story, in part, the documentary does not shy away from the very real challenges and emotionally difficult moments faced by participants during the process of rehearsing for and acting in the play. “What you truly see is [that] some of the participants really struggled, and Jim captured it so beautifully in the film,” said Sarah Rasmussen of Killington, whose son Jack appears in the documentary as part of a “Search and Rescue Team.” “I was literally alongside those people. I went with my son to every practice — I became a stagehand. At one point, a couple of the participants who have lead roles struggle with very emotional, human emotions that make it challenging to do a play and put yourself out there on the stage. Friends of mine were [telling] me last night, ‘Oh, we’re dying to see [the film],’ and I said, ‘It’s going to be different than you think.’ It’s a great documentary, but there will be tears.”
One of the major challenges faced by the actors was the auditions — an element of pre-production that Zack’s Place had never incorporated into their staged musicals in the past. Rasmussen credited Dail Frates with the idea, as a way to ensure that the participants — including the citizens of Woodstock who also participated in the making of the film — were fully committed to the production. “I think she wanted buy-in from them, [for] all of the participants to understand we’re taking this seriously. This is a production; it’s just not an activity.” Sadwith added, “It also created great humor.”
The film has been named an official selection at several film festivals starting last fall, including the Breckenridge Film Festival, the Cinequest Film Fest, the Omaha Film Festival, and the Catalina Film Festival, where it was chosen as their 2025 Best Documentary Film. Closer to home, “Unscripted Lives” will be screened as part of the White River Indie Festival at 2:30 p.m. on March 5 at the Briggs Opera House. While awards are terrific, the real hope — as expressed by each person the Standard spoke with — is exposure to a community that can inspire others.
“I want the exposure as wide as possible,” said Sadwith, “because Zack’s Place is a pretty unique institution that gives really great opportunities for people with disabilities. I just felt like, man, if other communities — even small communities — around the country saw this and were inspired by it, and they’d start their own Zack’s-Place-type enrichment centers, think about how it would enrich the lives of their citizens with disabilities, and their citizens without disabilities, just the way it does in Woodstock.”
“My hope is that this film shares a universal message: the vital importance of creating loving, inclusive environments where everyone has the opportunity to learn, grow, and lead a purposeful life,” Dail Frates concluded.
For more about the film, visit unscriptedlivesmovie.com.