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what I~ a rneqfyeifonniY1fJArts Experte11Ce? DON BANGS ccording to Patrick Graybill (1985), the 1970s ushered in a "Golden .......",.,.._Age" of sign language performing arts. Over the past fifteen years, American critics of the performing arts have awarded their highest honors to theater, television, and film programs in sign language . In 1977, the National Theatre of the Deaf received a Special Tony Award. Children of a Lesser God won three 1980 Tony Awards: Best Non-Musical Play, Best Actor, and Best Actress. (The Best Actress award went to Phyllis Frelich, the first Deaf person to receive this award.) In 1986, Love Is Never Silent, a Hallmark Hall of Fame special developed by Deaf coexecutive producer Julianna Fjeld, received a national Emmy Award. (More than twenty regional Emmys have been awarded for sign language productions over the past fifteen years (Bangs, 1986).) Marlee Matlin became the first Deaf person to win an Academy Award, receiving a 1987 Oscar for her starring role in the film version of Children ofa Lesser God. She was the third person to win such an award for a role using sign language. The 1970s also introduced the "Age of Access" for disabled people, as they persuaded Congress to enact such landmark legislation as Section 504, which mandates that all programs receiving funding from the federal government must be accessible to disabled people. Deaf people have become much more assertive about their rights in recent years, thanks to the 1988 Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University. The Golden Age and the Age of Access have created dilemmas for many theater, film, and television production companies. How can Deaf culture and sign language be incorporated into the theatrical event to meet the needs of Deaf spectators? And what about hearing spectators? How can the promise of performing arts in sign language theater be realized for people who are unfamiliar with Deaf culture? And, finally, can both audiences be satisfied with the same performance? To discuss these dilemmas, I will focus primarily on theater productions, although my points about theater can also be applied to television and film. Many theater companies have attempted to meet the needs of Deaf patrons by providing sign language interpreters, usually at one side of the proscenium, during special performances. But is this really a theater experience for Deaf audiences? Can Deaf spectators who try to follow the signs of an interpreter in one location while viewing a theatrical production somewhere else really receive a theatrical experience comparable to that of their hearing counterparts? Over the past 100 years, a number of special theaters in America have presented theater works in sign language supplemented by voice narration.These theaters have included the Gallaudet University Theater, the National Theatre of the Deaf, the National 752 THE DEAF WAY ~ Deaf People and the Arts Technical Institute for the Deaf, the Fairmount Theatre of the Deaf, Chalb Productions, and many other regional theater programs. Despite their efforts, these theaters have had to struggle to engage the Deaf audiences in the performance onstage. When Deaf audiences do not respond well to a particular sign language theater production, it is tempting to excuse the situation by saying that the Deaf audience was not sophisticated enough to understand the performance. However, Greek tragedies were staged before audiences with little education, and Shakespeare wrote his plays for people with less than a third grade reading level. These works endure today as classics of the theater. Before we write off Deaf viewers as unsophisticated, we should take a closer look at what happens when a Deaf person views a sign language production. Complicating our efforts to understand the experience of Deaf audience members is the fact that we may find a hearing viewer with a completely different perspective on sign language and deafness seated in the same theater. Unsophisticated hearing audience members may see sign language as mime, gesture, or some other nonverbal medium. They may be amazed that people with hearing losses can perform "in spite of their handicap." In contrast, Deaf audience members may be very proud of their language and of their fellow Deaf people performing on stage. The reactions of Deaf and hearing spectators to sign language performances by Deaf actors will obviously be different. Defining the Theater Experience After more than 100 years of theater activity involving Deaf people and sign language, there is still very little information about the audience's perspective of the theater experience . In 1973, Dorothy Miles and Lou Fant wrote a monograph...

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