Working with the deaf and hard of hearing
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Has anyone done theatre using a deaf actor and a speaking actor playing the same role. I understand when Big River was on Broadway it was done that way and I wondered how it worked. Right now I have a deaf actress playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and I'd love to consider her for another show. Any ideas or insight would be helpful.
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What you're referring to is usually called shadowing. I've worked on productions where deaf and hearing performers essentially played the same role - I think it works best when the "performance" switches back and forth between the two actors, so they each have the opportunity to "play" the role, while the other "shadows", or translates.
I saw Big River at the Roundabout with the 1/2 deaf, 1/2 hearing cast. It was phenomenal!!!
Let's see if I can remember exactly how they did it. Huck Finn was deaf - he signed his part. It was spoken by Mark Twain, who acted as narrator for him. As I recall, the Twain character sat DSR and spoke to the audience when he was himself, then turned US toward the Huck Finn character and spoke Huck's lines as Huck signed them. The entire production was very well done. Oh, BTW - The actor who played Twain was the original Huck Finn in the first Broadway production of Big River!
WOW, Last year we did Cinderella with a deaf actress in the title role and a hearing actress as her shadow/double. Both girls were dressed exactly the same and both played the character. I also added a "story teller" who signed all of the other characters in all of the scenes with Cinderella. It was pretty amazing. The experience was great for all involved and we actually were on the local news channel.
the production company was called Deaf West, i believe they did one other show. if you google search deaf west big river, a youtube clip will come up, along with various sites that have information the website for the company is www.deafwest.org i hope this helps you :)