Transcript Divas www.transcriptdivas.com Phone: (888) 494-8474 The Ensemblist - Ep 60 ASL-10-29-15 11.31AM [Start of recorded material 00:00] Kevin Bianchi: Hey guys, it’s Kevin from The Ensemblist team. Normally, you hear my name at the end of the episode. But I thought I’d pop in at the beginning to let you know that it’s that time of year again, friends. We’re gathering questions for our annual Listener Questions Episode. Do you have a question about how Broadway really works? Tweet us at The Ensemblist and use the hashtag Ensemblist LQ. It can be a question about performing, technique, the business, social media, a specific show, even a specific ensemblist. Just tweet us at The Ensemblist and use the hashtag #Ensemblist LQ. Mo Brady: You’re listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I’m Mo Brady. Nikka Graff Lanzarone: And I’m Nikka Graff Lanzarone. The idea for this episode started long before the Spring Awakening revival was announced. It started back in 2013 during a performance of The Jungle Book. Many of the larger regional theaters do an ASL-interpreted performance or two, and I find that my favorite day in a limited run is always ASL day. There’s an extra level of communication going on, something that taps into our very core human nature, to be understood, to tell stories, to figure out a way for everyone to get the same theatrical experience. As I watched the incredible interpreter, some work with Andre De Shields’ crazy “King Louie” ad-libs and bring a whole other hilarious side to his performance -- I mean, I was paying attention to everything I was supposed to be doing on stage. What are you talking about? Mo: Of course you were, Nikka, yeah uh-huh. Nikka: I was struck by how cool it was, and how I wanted to explore it further. Mo: And then thankfully, the Spring Awakening revival did happen, and we got to see it. And we loved it, because Spring Awakening, you guys. Nikka: Spring Awakening, you guys. Mo: But also, this production of Spring Awakening transferred to Broadway from Los Angeles, where it was originally produced by the Deaf West Theatre Company. Deaf West is a professional resident sign language theatre, where productions are presented in American Sign Language with simultaneous translation in English, providing for all an enhanced theatrical experience. 1 Transcript Divas www.transcriptdivas.com Phone: (888) 494-8474 Nikka: And you’ll hear people mention Gallaudet University a bunch in this episode, so we thought we’d tell you a little bit more about it for context. Gallaudet University is a federally charted private university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing, located in Washington D.C, founded in 1864. Gallaudet University is officially bilingual, with American Sign Language, commonly abbreviated ASL, and English used for instruction and by the college community. Mo: On this episode, we speak to three people with vastly different experiences, performing American Sign Language on Broadway, a hearing actor, a hard of hearing actor, and a sign language interpreter. We asked them about how speaking in ASL is different when you’re performing in front of 1,000 audience members, what interpreters do to prepare, and the extra layer of metaphor that comes with adding ASL to theatrical text. Stay with us. Josh Castille: Hello, I’m Josh Castille and I live in Hell’s Kitchen. Nikka: Josh grew up in Louisiana, but as a hard of hearing actor, he found himself at Gallaudet University, studying theater. Josh: I was studying deaf theater, and theater education. So I basically teach deaf people how to act. Going there, I had already done some training in high school, and at a professional theater company outside of high school. And so, I had all this training. And when I got to college, I kind of thought okay, so I’m ahead of the game. And then I realized I wasn’t, because I was ahead of the game in the hearing acting game, but not in the deaf acting game. And the deaf acting game is so different, and has got these components of signing and visual expressions, and mouth morphemes that are entirely expressing your feelings and storyline through just that medium. So having come from the hearing world, where we use our voices to like crack and cry, and then walking into a classroom full of deaf people, and trying to use those techniques, it doesn’t work because they don’t hear me. Cathy Markland: My name is Cathy Markland, and I live on the upper, Upper West Side. I live at 158th and Riverside Drive West. Mo: Cathy is an American Sign Language interpreter, who like Josh, studied at Gallaudet. While she isn’t deaf or hard of hearing herself, Cathy believed that the school was the right place to get her career in interpretation started. Cathy: Well, if I really want to do this right, you go to where the people speak the language. So I thought the only place I really know, where there’s a big group of people, using the language that I need to learn was Gallaudet. So I got in. It was very hard. My degree is sign communication. 2 Transcript Divas www.transcriptdivas.com Phone: (888) 494-8474 Nikka: Our third guest is a hearing actor, and veteran of such shows as A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Tarzan, and Memphis, but he made his Broadway debut in a production that employed American Sign Language. Kevin Massey: My name is Kevin Massey, and I just moved to Washington Heights, which is now called Hudson Heights in Manhattan. I was in a Deaf West production of Big River, and it incorporated sign language. Half the cast was deaf and half were hearing. And so, as a hearing actor, I signed and spoke at the same time. And the deaf actor would sign and we would voice for him or her. Mo: In the last couple of decades, two Deaf West productions have crossed the country to hit Broadway. In 2003, the revival of the musical, Big River, that employed American Sign Language landed in NYC, after starting out on the West Coast, although Kevin hadn’t part of the show’s original outings. Kevin: They had done it out at Deaf West, and then it did so well, they moved it to the Ahmanson, I believe, in LA. And then, they brought it into New York. And a long story short, I got an audition for it. And ended up booking it, and becoming a swing for the show, and made my Broadway debut, which Jeff Calhoun is awesome about doing. So Big River was my first experience with ASL. And in fact, when I was auditioning, I didn’t really know or understand how ASL was being a part of the show. And then we, instead of a dance call, we had a sign call. And so, we learned [unintelligible 00:06:29 audio skip]. And that was really my first experience ever with sign language, but it was very much like dance. So, they saw how fast you picked it up. And some of it sort of made sense, in terms of words, but some of it didn’t. They were just movement that went along with music. In the beginning when I was first learning the show, I was pretty much only learning sign language, in terms of my lines and the music. Now luckily, a lot of those same words, you can use in conversation as well. However, I came in a week later in the process. And so, not only did everybody else know each other, I literally couldn’t speak to half the cast, because I didn’t know their language. But eventually, I was starting to be slightly conversational with sign language. Nikka: Josh has been a part of the Spring Awakening revival company from its very first staging, moving to LA from Gallaudet to do so. Josh Castille: I got involved with the production because I moved to D.C. for college at Gallaudet University. And they sent a mass email to actors at Gallaudet, and asked them to go ahead and audition for Spring Awakening online, because they needed deaf actors. But yes, I dropped out of school and moved to LA to do a show for $100 a week. 3 Transcript Divas www.transcriptdivas.com Phone: (888) 494-8474 Mo: For the many Broadway shows that don’t use ASL on stage, deaf and hard of hearing audiences can still enjoy performances, thanks to the interpreters at a New York organization called Hands On. We asked Cathy, who has worked with the organization for over a decade, to talk about the extended process of preparing to interpret a show. Cathy: So Hands On hires interpreters for mostly Off-Broadway theatre, but they have a nice relationship with three theaters that I work at often: the American Airlines Theatre on 42nd Street, the New Victory Theater for Children’s Theatre, and then also Studio 54. They have a subscription series. So they send out a flyer and say, would you like to sign up? And then, they pay through Hands On. And then, Beth meets them at the door, outside the ticket office, and gives them specific tickets. And they come sit in the deaf section, to see the interpreters in aligned with the theater.