BERWICK – Playing the lead role of Christopher, an autistic teenager, in a Tony-award winning show opening this week at Hackmatack Playhouse in Berwick was a dream come true for 21-year-old Colin Prato of Yarmouth.

The “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” is not only one of Prato’s favorite shows, it is also a deeply personal story for a young man whose brother is differently-abled.

“This is a role that means the world to me,” said Prato, a rising senior at the University of New Hampshire. “I have an older brother, Jack, who has Down Syndrome and my entire life I’ve been surrounded by kids with autism and special needs.”

The show, which one more than one Tony, tells the story of Christopher’s effort to uncover who murdered his neighbor’s dog. In the process of unveiling the secret of a murdered dog, Christopher overcomes some of his own fears and comes face to face with some hard facts about his parents.

When Prato learned this spring that he would play the part of the 15-year-old protagonist, he knew he could draw from a lifetime of loving, playing and working with Jack and Jack’s friends.

“I’ve been able to draw from people I know,” Prato said, adding that he sees it as a privilege.“To be able to embody the human aspects of these people I’ve been privileged to meet is so exciting.”

In particular, like Prato’s brother, Christopher responds strongly to being overloaded. Christopher reacts by groaning, creating a kind of white nose that floods out the other noises, while Jack listens to music, Prato said.

One of Prato’s biggest challenges in this show has been acting out these moments Christopher gets over-stimulated.

“There are so many parts in the play where Christopher is so overexcited with everything going on and the hardest part is dealing with these moments of emotional breakdown,” Prato said.

But Prato also gained understanding from other people he met from Jack’s world. In particular, a boy named Tommy, who is on the spectrum and less highly functioning than Jack.

Like Christopher “Tommy is full of wonder and you can tell he cares about people. He remembers your name even if you don’t see him for years. He’ll go like ‘Oh hey, Colin.’”

In his effort to understand Christopher, Prato worked hard on when and how to make eye contact with people, something Christopher finds hard to do, especially with strangers but even with people who are close to him.

Prato would ask himself, “Can he even make eye contact at all, and when he does manage why does he?”

As he talked about Christopher and the role during a break in rehearsal, Prato emphasized that in many ways the play is a common coming-of-age story. It is the story of a young man learning to navigate the world and overcome his fear.

Prato loves that neither the novel of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” written by Mark Haddon, nor the play, written by Simon Stephens, ever specifically mention that Christopher is on the spectrum.

“It’s the way of saying there is no barrier, that Christopher has a condition but that doesn’t make him any different from us.”

Prato believes the primary goal of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” is to guide people to understand this and better relate to people like Christopher.

“If you’re thinking about meeting them as different from meeting any other human being then you’re thinking about it the wrong way,” according to Prato. “They have beautiful minds and unique perspectives. So much value can be found in having such a unique but beautiful perspective.”

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” runs July 3 to 20 with shows 8 pm Wed. to Sat. and 2 pm on Thursdays July 4, 11 and 18. For more information, go to www.hackmatack.org or call 698-1807.