 We're just waiting a few more minutes. We're just waiting for a few more folks to be able to join us, and then we'll get started. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. We are just going to wait a few more minutes so more folks can join us. But I want to welcome all of you, all of those who are watching through HowlRound. Hello to all of you. I just want to let you know that you are able to join directly through our Zoom link. And you can chat with us and interact with us through our chat box. HowlRound has their website. However, you'd have to refresh it continually to be able to find our feed at the very bottom. And at the comments, there'll be the link for the Zoom room. And you can go ahead and click that link to join us here in this Zoom setting. And then you can join us directly and interact with us here. So we would love to hear from you. We would love to hear your feedback. I know Monique would love to hear your feedback and your thoughts. So that would be wonderful. And Monique is saying she just said hello. So I'd like to just explain a few things while we're waiting for other folks to join us. So first of all, hello. My name is Garrett. This is my name sign with the G on the chest. I'm not directly involved with this production myself. However, I'm facilitating this evening's discussion. And I'd like to, I'm actually very honored that IRT and Monique asked me to moderate this evening. So thank you for that. For those of you who are joining us tonight, we're going to start with a brief discussion with the panelists. I'll be posing some questions. And while we're discussing, please be thinking about comments, some feedback, some thoughts, some questions, anything brewing in your heads, pros and cons, positive or negative, good, bad, ugly. Please share. Please tell us. Please tell Monique. Bring it on. And the simple way that you can do that is in the participants section, you can click on the icon that says participants and you can click on the raise hand feature. And that will come up with a blue hand icon. And that'll immediately pop up by your name. And we will be able to see, we'll get a notification and we'll be able to bring you into our room. And we will be able to discuss and interact with you directly. So please feel free to raise your hand at any point during the discussion. And it won't bring you into our Zoom right away. We do have a stage manager. Her name is Emily. And when I'm ready, I'll let Emily know to bring you in. So you can go ahead and click the raise hand at any point that you would like to ask a question or make a comment. And then we'll bring you in when the time is right. So please don't feel any pressure to do this if you have a comment or question. And if you don't feel comfortable asking in front of the group for whatever reason, that's absolutely all right. At the bottom of the screen, there's a Q&A section as well. At the very bottom of your screen in the toolbar, if you'd like to ask a question or make a comment there without coming onto the screen and joining us without the camera on you, I will be happy to sign the question or comment for you. We would obviously prefer to see your beautiful faces, of course, but we would understand if you'd prefer to type your question. I'd like to emphasize, for those of you who haven't experienced this kind of platform, this kind of media format, you won't see other members of the audience. You're only going to see the panelists. And currently you should see, I believe there's 11 windows all together on your screen that you should be able to see right now. So you won't see the audience members. If you'd like to chat with audience members during this discussion, you can go ahead and utilize the chat box to do so. So the chat functionality is there for your use. However, I'm not going to be fully attending to the chat box because I'm going to be paying attention to the panelists and what we're discussing up here. So if you'd like to chat, it's kind of like a backstage chat. You can feel free to do that. But just be aware that we won't be fully attending to that chat box during our discussion up here. And if you'd like to ask us a question, please use the Q&A box. So thank you so much, Amelia, for reminding me. Please click Gallery View to see the entire list of windows, excuse me, the entire screen of panelists. So it should say Gallery View rather than Speaker View. And then you'll be able to see everyone participating. If you only see one window right now, you'll need to click on Gallery View. So thank you for that reminder, Amelia. OK, great. So if you are seeing one screen, then you're going to need to click Gallery View. So I know that's a lot. And I think that's sufficient for now. And it looks like we have a cameo appearance from someone else here who just joined us. So again, for those of you who just joined us, my name is Garrett. I'm the moderator for this evening. And I'd like to quickly go through and have everyone introduce themselves, except for the three interpreters. I misspoke two interpreters, but we actually have three interpreters tonight. So if a hearing non-signing participant of tonight's discussion would like to make a comment or ask a question, we do have inside language interpreters for your disposal. So we will be happy to do that for you. So regardless of communication mode, communication modality, we will be happy to work with it. So come on. So first, let's start with Monique. If you could explain who you are and your role in this production. Hello. My name is Monique Holt. You can call me Momo for short. And this is my name sign. I'm the playwright and the artistic director of this show. My pronouns are she, her, hers. Thank you. And next, Amelia. Hi, my name is Amelia. This is my name sign. I'm the assistant director and editor of this piece. Great. And Andrew. Hello, everyone. My name is Andrew Morrill. And this is my name sign. I go by he, him, his, and I am an actor. And Joey. Hello, I'm Joey. This is my name sign. I'm an actor. And I use he, him, his pronouns. Jackie. Hello, I'm Jackie Ross. I'm an actor in this production. Malini. Hello, I'm Malini Chaitou. And I'm an actress in this. I go by she, her, and hers. Dickey. Hi, everybody. I'm Dickey Hart. This is my name sign. And I use he, him, his pronouns. I'm an actor in this piece. And the other three folks are our interpreters for this evening and Monique. Actually, let's go down to who just joined us. John Yi, please share who you are. And my name is John Yi. And I worked as the animator for this production. The animator. So you did the computer animations for this. Wonderful. Perfect. All right. So let's start with Monique, of course. The top dog for this production. If you wouldn't mind sharing briefly, how did this show come about? How did it start? Sure. So I had started working with IRT previously on some other projects. And it become known to me that they were looking for a particular person for this extra, for this additional piece coming up. And so when I was asked to produce something, the idea came to me. Please untranslate me. And that was a title that just initially came to mind that I thought I wasn't really married to. So I tried to get rid of it. I tried to see if any other ideas would come to mind. But for some reason, it just started to take its own shape and form. And from there, we just started expanding upon that. And that's what became what you saw today. And I'm assuming this all started before COVID-19. Yes, this all happened before. So when the pandemic hit, how did it change your preparation for this production? Oh, COVID had a huge impact on the vision and the interactive portion of the production. I originally had an intention to utilize a scrim in the stage play. And so it was going to be able to capture different movements, capture different characters and their identities, and being able to interact with those characters, as well as those who were going to be in front of it on stage. The ASL poetry portion was meant to have a dense choreography to it with music. But since we were limited to the Zoom screen, we dropped some of those pieces of the multimedia. So that wasn't entirely possible. But we made some adaptations. Amelia, fortunately, through our discussions, she has some great editing skills. And so we, through our discussions, started to think about other ways that we could edit the film or edit it to make it what it was. So thank you for your help, Amelia. Wonderful. Thank you. Now, was this the first time working with animation for you? Yes. Yes, this was a first for me. I had worked with other multimedia tools, but for animation it was a first. And what was that experience like working with animation and working with Johnny? Well, really how I had envisioned the animation was meant to be an interview. Did you say an interview? I interviewed animators all over the United States. Got it. Thank you. And so I was looking for some really talking to some top level animators, to some entry level ones. And Johnny really kind of had me thinking that he was almost toward the top in the nation. And so I had chosen to work with him with Johnny. And through our interactions, I had never really seen his kind of work in theater. And it got me really thinking I would love to work with him. So that's why we chose him. So Johnny, was this the first time working on a theater production for you? Yes, it was my first time. So what was this experience like for you? Were you surprised or did you think, oh, this is nothing? How did you feel? Was it new for you? Was it challenging? It was a surprise. There were some challenges. I'd never experienced making animation for a theater production before. You know, in terms of moving the production along, I received the script. I was able to look it over. Once I was able to look it over, I asked questions about things that were confusing for me. And then I'd share my ideas about the animation. I would test things. I would make simple animations. I would ask, is this the idea? Is this kind of what you're thinking of? And so we'd kind of go back and forth. And if it wasn't right, then I'd make some edits, make some changes. I'd submit those and make sure those were to her satisfaction. So previously, my animation background, it tries to mesh and gel with what the artist's envisionment is. So I was really proud to work with everyone in this theater company. It was really wonderful. So I'm really happy that it worked out. Really awesome. So proud of your work. That means that you would be willing to do another theater production in the future? Yes, I would like to do more. Absolutely. That's wonderful. We will look forward to more of your work in the future. Thank you so much. So I'd actually now like to turn my focus to Amelia. Hello, Amelia. You were the assistant with Monique on this production. When I say assistant, what were those duties, those responsibilities? Obviously editing, which bravo. So that was one of your main responsibilities, editing the production. And then what other processes were involved? Assistant director, one of my responsibilities was making sure that the actors had enough light, which was the most challenging part of the process, believe it or not. Joey. I informed them where to direct their eye gaze. It's a challenge on Zoom. You've got these screens. And we wanted to have a standardization of where people were looking. And so I would say look up to the top, but on my screen, they'd be on the bottom. And so we had to make sure people were looking in the right direction for me. And of course, I was supporting Monique. And we would have sessions where I would give her some advice on my observances. And of course, I edited this piece. And Zoom has a specific look. And we really wanted to avoid that. It looks dark. It looks heavy. And our goal was to bring levity and color to this piece. And we wanted it to be interesting visually. So that was part of my responsibility of process. Now, how long did it take to edit this production? I only had eight days to edit the whole thing. Eight days. Eight days, yes. That's not you. Did you sleep? Did you sleep at all those eight days? A couple of days, and there were a couple of days that I didn't, but I'm alive. You know, that passion, you know, that just that feeds you, right? That forces you into that kind of work. Absolutely, you put it perfectly. So now I'd like to focus my attention to all five actors. So I'm wondering, what was the most challenging aspect of this for you? I'll go, Andrew. Definitely, this is a changing world. And so is acting, you know, bringing it onto a screen. You know, it just gives us a deeper hunger for connection and working in a physical space together. I think there's a, you know, that is functional for us to bring out our emotions onto a screen, onto the stage. But working with a 2D screen, we really had to just be patient with each other, you know, and also being able to establish a connection with the other characters. I'd like to add to that, Andrew. It was a huge challenge for me as an actor, because similarly, you know, this is a piece that requires connection. And with a screen that becomes an interesting challenge on stage or in film, you can make eye contact with your scene partner. But in Zoom, I'm trying to look at someone's face, but also I need to look at the camera, but I don't want to look at the camera. So that's an interesting challenge. But we're a great team. We're supportive, we push each other, and we made it through this, especially with everything that's happening in the world with coronavirus, Black Lives Matter, everything that's going on. Thank you, Dickey. Malini, what was challenging for you? And I noticed you had to play the role of a hearing person. Was that challenging for you? Yes, it was. Definitely. 100% being, you know, a deaf person and then switching to a hearing character was, woof. You know, I have a little bit of training in speech therapy. And so, you know, I really tried to focus on not overdoing it, but just kind of letting my mouth follow the words. That was a challenge for me. Thank you for the patience to work with me. And I had to, you know, I had some pretty heavy texts, some long monologues. And, you know, I tried to just picture it as, you know, if one day I had suddenly became hearing, just, you know, instantly, you know, what would that be like for me? I don't know if that would be, you know, if that's ever possible, but I mean, you know, I don't know what that would be like. So that's what I tried to embody. But the acting pushed you into the unknown. Isn't that correct? Absolutely. Yes, it did. Well, you did wonderfully. Thank you. And Jackie, what about you? What was the most challenging for you? Really, the technological aspect for me, I'm not tech savvy. I'm not what you would call tech savvy at all. So figuring out lighting, figuring out Zoom, and it's all new for me. I'm used to having everything set up for me and now having to do it myself, it's a challenge. And I'm all constantly checking, what am I supposed to do? Amelia, you have to be my eyes. Oh, wait, I have to put my eyes over here. Oh, thank you so much, Amelia, for keeping me on top of that. The whole thing was a new experience. And it was a very positive thing to experience. But of course, nothing can fill the space and make connection like working with a team, a great team like this. So we're all on the same page and I can't wait to we're all in the same space too. It's really nice because previously we had discussed, I think it was a night or two ago, how everyone has been spread out and it's rare to be able to assemble a team like this. And so we were able to bring everyone together. That was one positive, is pulling together this excellent team, skilled professionals from all over, which was just really excellent. This is a great example of that, of that opportunity. Joey, what was challenging for you? Really adapting to this new format in a Zoom workshop as opposed to a stage reading. I'm not used to, I'm used to rehearsing and rehearsing and then giving a performance, but I'm not accustomed to rehearsing and then the day of two hours later, I finally understood the concept and now I'm performing that piece. So it takes a different kind of energy and a different kind of mentality to be able to accomplish that. And so with real live theater, you have the luxury of time to develop a character and learn the nuances. And in this piece, it was really sort of a verb of the moment, go do it. And Zoom fatigue, which all of us can relate to, you have to pay attention because you never know, you'd take your eyes off the screen for one moment and everyone is waving, trying to get my attention. So it's nonstop, deaf folks look away for one second and all of a sudden the whole screen's waving back at you. So that was another challenging part of this rehearsal process. So a challenge, not just for the rehearsal process, but a challenge to be deaf in a visual world, period. So. Zoom is not deaf friendly. No, Zoom is absolutely not deaf friendly. Some ways, yes, some ways, no. So Nikola, and I'm not sure if I'm saying your name right, I believe you have your hand raised. Would you like to join us and make a comment or ask a question? And they disappeared. Where'd you go? Sam has their hand raised. Would you like to come and join us? And it does take a few seconds to bring the person into the room with us. I see her. Ta-da, ta-da. Is she, is she? I don't know. I don't know. That's another problem of deaf folks on Zoom, trying to get everyone's attention. Right. Here we are finally. Oh my goodness. Hello. So just wanted to make a few comments. First of all, congratulations on a fantastic, amazing show. Monique, your production, your writing was excellent. Amelia, your editing, I was so entirely impressed. It was so awesome. I do have a question. So moving forward. Oh, so I'm sorry. The audience, who was your intended audience? I'll go, Monique. So really I wrote this for people who don't know much about the deaf culture and ASL. Really I wanted to emphasize how you can access this depending on how we set things up. We talked about accessing archives, the DS or the library, the digital library for ASL. And I wanted to fix a lot of the things but your feedback is very much welcome to help us with that process. I think a general comment would be the transitions and the editing. It was very nice. However, it was very nice. Oh, with the actors coming up between each scenes, the blending, them appearing and then disappearing. So leading from one scene to the next. So I thought that was a really cool transition. The choreography, the pictures, the visuals. Graphics. The graphics were really nice. The handshapes, the handshaped features that were shown. It was clear, it was all clear for me. So all the cultural information because I am an interpreter. So I thought that that was very clear. It was relevant for me and I understood it as an interpreter. In terms of handshapes and linguistics, a lot of those features that were discussed in the play. Dickie's oral presentation, his piece, that was really lovely. So I just think overall it was just amazing. Did you see the A? Finally, I can graduate. Yeah, it was just amazing. I loved it. You got a name, Dickie. Congratulations. Thank you so much, Sam. Thank you. Now Monique, you said that you did write this play for hearing people who don't know deaf culture. Is that correct? Yes. So I believe that the show has no voicing. Isn't that correct? That's correct. Was that your intended choice? Yes, it was. Remember that every time there's a deaf production with an interpreter, something doesn't quite, it's not quite the same. You know, when you're in a room and everyone's having to pay attention, that's not the same in English. Yeah, it's not quite the same experience. And so what I wanted to do was to be able to experiment what it would be like to try to give the hearing audience the exact same experience that deaf people are getting. And people are saying that they might be missing some things here and there. We're still experimenting with that and why that is. But we're gonna keep going with the flow and see what happens. It's a big challenge in terms of deaf theater and in terms of creating accessibility and creating accessibility for a non-ASL using audience and showing them art. And that's a big challenge. And we are still researching, developing, we're still struggling, we're still experimenting, we're still finding different things. And this very thing is proof, so thank you for that. So I'm wondering if, oh, if anyone in the audience who's listening or watching right now, if you are a hearing member of the audience and maybe your ASL skills are not so much there or you don't have any American Sign Language skills, if this applies to you, if you wouldn't mind raising your hand and letting us know what your experience was like in watching this show. And that's okay if there's no one there or maybe everyone here is proficient in sign language which is very cool. So this is an actual signing zone then. So that's wonderful. So, and someone has raised, Marla has raised their hand. So if you wouldn't mind joining us. Michael. Oh, Michael. Michael. So if you are hearing and you prefer to speak, you don't know sign language. We do have three sign language interpreters here. So hello. Hello. Hello friends. Some of you I know, some of you I do not know. So Joey had mentioned the Zoom fatigue. So I'm not sure in terms of editing and what Amelia was doing with the editing and how the picture was moved around and how the editing was done with, I mean, it looked very smooth and it was absolutely fascinating. I don't, I just was completely fascinated by it. I see it. The academic areas of the play were all fantastic. I just thought it was really well done. I really applaud you all. Monique, I really applaud you as the director. I just thought, wow, you know, to be able to go in this direction, to move in this direction for theater while COVID-19 was happening, while theaters were closed and you were able to produce this, it was just incredible. You were all fantastic and you connected with each other and how you moved with each other and how the panels moved, the windows moved and in synchronicity with each other during the play and I just, it was just incredible. Seamless. It looked like you moved in the right ways when you were interacting with each other in the different scenes. So I just really enjoyed it. I think the editing was just really well done. So I just, I loved it so much. Yay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Okay, I'm supposed to disappear now, right? Wonderful. Ooh. All right. Beth had typed in the chat box. I'm assuming Beth is a hearing person. And she said, at times I felt like I was watching a silent film even in 100% deaf production, they still is sound. So it's hard to get used to for a hearing audience. And yes, I'm hearing and no ASL skills. So completely silent production was hard to get used to for a hearing audience member. Interesting. Yeah, that's very interesting. Okay. Oh, there is a question in the Q and A box. Okay, a big one. All right, here it is. A big chunk that I'm gonna sign. This is from Marla, Bronstein. I have a few linguistic questions. Did I misunderstand that F and yellow are signed the same somewhere? So F and yellow. And then what does skid mark mean for ASL? So let me hold on that. So Monique, would you like to go ahead and answer that? Sure. So yellow is the color, but F, it wasn't yellow. It was F and the number nine that people can get confused because it's the same handshake. Same goes for the number two and three. They also resemble the letters V and W. So it's kind of similar. They just use color coding to indicate which two meanings have the same handshake. And so, you know, that was something that we came up with quickly. On stage, it would be differently. It would look different because Jean Yeh would use some animation to be able to highlight those things in another visual way. For skid mark, I'm not sure I recall what that was from. Was that a non-manual marker, non-manual signal and NMS? Is that what it was? Okay, this is Garrett. I think I remember seeing that in the show, but I don't remember where or why that came up. Okay. Well, well, please don't remind us and we'll have to rewrite that part. So all of the linguistic questions, I would say maybe one-third of it is factual and then part of it is the rest is kind of fictional, okay, that I made up. Okay, and she also said, just to let you know as an FYI, Mary and Mary are not homonyms. If you're not from, if you are from New York. There was some kind of argument about that when it comes to linguistic, you know, and I had the same things come up when we were doing translating Shakespeare. No, it's a joke because of the accent and where people are from, they're different communities. So in general, you know, people who don't have that accent, it is. Okay, wonderful. And then there was some confusion about the comparison of pale as in the color pale. And then pale, the stick, to stick. Yeah, the pale, like to pale like the verb, like to stick something in. To impale. Impale, okay, to impale. Impale, similar to pale, the color. Okay, great. The sacrifice made her cry. And poetry was incredible. And finally, if you wouldn't mind Monique or someone else, if you could explain the creation of the sign for trauma. Maybe I'll just throw in something out here. So trauma typically has been signed this way, like a mark above the head, but there's also been a trauma along the heart because it also indicates this emotional trauma. So I don't know if that's something that's necessarily created and made up, but maybe anyone wants to chime in. I agree with Monique that it's similar to the scar, like the sign for scar is that same action depending on where on the body. So trauma is a scar of the mind. So trauma can be signed across the mind like that. I would assume it has, that's where the origin is from. I'm not a hundred percent sure. That would actually make sense. That would make sense. So thank you for that. And to wrap up, Mary said that this was just really wonderful and thank you to all for all of your hard work. And she is fangirling all over you. That's what she said. And she says there is no way that she herself is going to get on camera. Uh-uh. Why not? She's a little afraid, but she is just fangirling all over all of you. So wonderful. Thank you so much. And Monique. It's okay. I really appreciate your comments that really helps us start to, you know, use that to take it in the next direction as we move on with this because we want to get feedback to make this more accessible to everyone. So that's the goal. And I thank you. Okay. So now we're going to jump. Okay. And she's saying, oh, my bad with the F in the night. Okay. So that was my mistakes and no worries at all. And that is just fine. And now, and then she's saying, I adore you in all caps. And thank you so much. And thank you, Marla. Sorry, not Mary Marla. Okay. Leara, Leara. I'm sorry if I'm not pronouncing your name right. Leara. You had some beautiful visual elements, especially with the scene. I believe it was called the creation scene. I. Now, if you're, was it called the creation? Creation scene. Was there a choosing? The with the winning. Oh, I think it was. Oh, in the beginning, in the poem, in the beginning, it was just beautiful. I think that's what she was talking about. So it's a goal. And she's saying, yes, that is the one. Sorry, I forgot what the name was. So however, now the question. If the goal for this production is eventually to come on stage, would you prefer to have that scene altered to fit the actors to in-person? Or keep the video element or leave that decision to the director? That's a good question. Well, when I wrote the play, IRT asked me who would be directing this. And in my mind, I already had the vision of what I wanted it to look like. So could I really give that to another director and have to kind of explain my vision or should I just direct it? I think I sort of feel like it's my baby and it's still in its infancy, not really ready to confidently give that away yet. We're still kind of working out a lot of the concepts. No offense to anyone else, but I think understanding my goal and what I really want and what I want people to take away from that, I think is something that I'm still working out. So I'm wondering eventually when this production takes off to Broadway or what have you, do you already have something in mind that you would like to direct this or you don't know yet? I want the director to be someone deaf, period. Amen, mic drop. Yeah, and the actors to be deaf as well. Otherwise it's not gonna be understandable to them and to the other people. If they have to be able to embody that in order to convey it. So, yep. Yes. So I just wanna remind folks in the audience, if you would like to join, we would love to hear from you. So please do raise your hand and join us in the Zoom room. Yes. And we do have Annie who's raised her hand, so please come join us. Annie, what are you smelling? I love it. So I have three questions here. The first one is from Monique. So let me back up here. Oh, I'm just still mulling over the production. I'm gonna have to watch it again and again and just continue processing this and kudos to all of you for all your amazing work. So the linguistics aspect of the play, there is a strong linguistic elements to it. So you'd say you made up about, oh, one third is factual and two thirds that you just were fictional that you made up. Why did you decide on those percentages of what you made up and what you decided to have factual? Well, I wanted it to just feel like the student was in the research process. And not that we had already done that research already, but I wanted to show the comparison between the hearing languages in English and how there is that research already done. And yet for deaf and ASL, we're still in that process. So I know that the structures are different between the languages, even the modality between an auditory language and a 3D sign language. There are a lot of different distinctions there. The vocabulary, the labels and the names and the depth of the linguistic meaning behind things. We're just starting to scratch the surface when it comes to ASL. This is a very new research process. So I just started playing around with some of the ideas and kind of put in some made up concepts as food for thought just to start thinking about it. So there's a follow up to that response. So the dramaturge, how did that person help you with your process in terms of building up on this onion linguistics structure? Well, so first, when I, I'm going to leave the dramaturge. When I brought this to her, thank you. To them, we met up, we shared each other's, we share the same training backgrounds and kind of this resistance to having hearing people be in it. Peruna is hearing, so I had a resistance. Ah, sorry, thank you. And so I didn't want anything to be lost, but we got together and I wanted to get her perspective as a hearing person incorporated into it. So I thought that was interesting and I was open to that. And so we started kind of sharing ideas and that's what created sort of this pathway that ended up shaping it what it is. We both learned from each other and I wanted her to be able to learn what I was trying to convey as well. So that's how she played a part. Would you consider having an ASL linguist involved in your next workshop? Big time, oh yes. I've already been thinking about that. I knew that. I knew that it was a time frame. Had a tight time frame. Yeah, so we were able to finish some of those portions and we're also already thinking of act two and haven't written it yet, but we're looking to incorporate those linguistic information into that and then being able to work with the linguist to do that and the dramaturg as a part of the team. So hopefully we'll meet your expectations. For the actors, for the notes that she would send you in explaining, explaining the meaning and the absurdist aspects of the play, you can definitely see the emotions and the range of emotions from the tech person and going back and forth between the two emotions. So I'm sorry, I'm just the interpreter. What was the, you're having a hard time. I'm struggling. The question was going between the emotions of absurdism and your emotions. We lost some people. We lost Garrett. Okay, so I apologize, Annie. I missed the tail end of your question. But I think if they wanna go ahead and answer, I think the actors got it, if they wanna go ahead and answer. Did somebody wanna, yeah, I don't know. And Jackie's saying I could answer. Yeah, Jackie, Jackie wants to, I mean, I think for all of us, we kind of just went with it. We went with the plan. It's not all figured out yet. I have four different characters that I was playing. So it was more, not totally, all of that was not all totally in depth. It was just an opportunity to, I think for, you know, kind of MoMo is directing us to try a lot of different things. So it was a lot of just kind of going with the flow. A lot of very experimental. Okay, I'm going back. We're coming back. So I guess that would be my response to that. Okay, you're saying, I'm sorry, it looks like all three of us crashed at the same time. And Monique's asking, did you get your question answered, Annie? Did you, are you satisfied with the response? And I think Andrew wanted to respond to your question. Yeah, there are two different things. There was the unknown, unknown, unknown. Sarah, do you want me to take this? Yeah, go ahead. So with getting the script, we had the ASL Gloss. We had a lot of the specific linguistic aspects of the play that were confusing to me. So we had to be able to go back and forth between both languages, the English Gloss, as well as ASL. And for Monique, she had to show us what those transitions would look like, going back and forth between the English Gloss and the American Sign Language and being able to show that to us visually was what we needed to work with. Got it. This screen is a little gritty to me on mine. I think there was another, somebody else wanted to answer the question, Dickey. Yeah, so in terms of what Jackie said, it's really like learning a new skill as an actor with the ability to really get into and pick up these skills with a short timeframe. I'm really grateful to this experience. And now I do have that tool in my toolbox. And the willingness for us all to dive in and roll with it and let the process guide us. It was sort of a refreshing and interesting way. I mean, we found ways to play with the camera, to play with forced perspective. There's so many different ways to experiment in that manner. And we felt that we were limited, but it really forced us to get more creative. And that was a really nice experience and challenge for me. So there's a follow-up question. How much time did you rehearse and did you film as you were going along? Yes, Amelia, do you wanna answer that? Sure. We did not film in order, no. Because we followed actors' availability for the filming and that was also a challenge. How do we get everyone in one Zoom call at the same time? We rehearsed, I'd say, for two weeks, less than two weeks. But we would rehearse each scene got about two hours worth of rehearsal. We didn't repeat and run it back and again and again because we knew we needed time for editing. So, you know, I knew I wouldn't have time to finish the film if we didn't film quickly. Malini, yes, what Amelia was saying, I think we worked for about a week to a week and a half. And then we had to layer on everyone's films together in one in such a short amount of time. So the rehearsal was, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes at a time. And then it was like, okay, let's do it and go. Kind of freezing up, but. So it was more like that. Just these short moments of filming and rehearsing and then putting it all together. And then of course, we got the script and we had to read through it. And then I noticed the ASL linguistics portion and it was very fascinating. And so Monique explained a little bit more to us to help us get a better understanding of how it all fits together. I really enjoyed the process and especially playing the character of a hearing person. I really liked, I enjoyed the linguistics class. Those were things that I liked learning about. I understood that portion. And for audiences to also get access to that too of things that maybe a lot of people don't know. I think it was a challenge to think of how we would perform that. Sorry, the last part was a little, it's freezing up, but. She was talking about deaf perspectives versus hearing perspectives. Got it. Yeah. Okay, got it, thank you. Got it. And then Monique. So Monique for me, I think when I was writing the play I wanted the actors to be learning something new as well. So often there's an education portion to it but we wanted both the actors and the audiences to be able to learn. And so a lot of times, I think being able to educate about ASL audiences will assume that ASL is so just beautiful, this beautiful thing. And that's kind of the depth of the feedback that we get. And I loved it so much because it was so beautiful but really to unpack and elevate the education behind the perspective of ASL, that it's layering that with the drama of it and the animation layer too. I mean, that helped so much with being able to convey what we wanted to say. And that also showed the interaction between the actors that we didn't get to do as much on a stage and incorporating the absurdism into it as well, that helped. Oh, Malini has her hand up. Yeah, and freezing up, slow down. You're freezing up, it's freezing up. Can you slow down, please? Yeah, oh. So she said that sort of like how hearing people have lyrics and in their songs and this beautiful music, it was sort of kind of a parallel for us to be able to do that in ASL that we could show that we can do something similar. Right, yes. Legend, here's my last question. The scene with the concept of understand and the figure that comes out, was that interpreter or what was that, was it a magic genie interpreter that popped out of the finger or I'm not really sure? I wasn't sure really how to take that, this person climbing out of this index finger. And yeah, I wasn't sure, what was your, what were you envisioning with that? Joey, do you wanna explain that? I can try, sure. The spirit of absurdism, cat hair on my hands. So we have, you got the idea right, sort of a genie in a bottle, or in my case, understand in a wine bottle. Drink up. But the understand character, is there to serve as an invisible accessibility provider, just invisible understanding between two groups that can't communicate a hearing and a deaf person. It's silly, it's definitely absurd, it's funny. We're keeping with the spirit of that theater tradition. I think, I really, this point is serious. I think that in our life experience, many of us have felt frustrated, that people don't understand what we're trying to say, it's not clear. And I'm saying, this is what I am saying and you do not understand me. Therefore, the interpreter must not understand me. And I do just feel a loss of agency. And I wish that I could just make my information penetrate straight through to your brain. It's a struggle, trying to figure out a way to make sure that that other person will understand me through all of this confusion and it's ridiculous. So, it's a wish, it's on my wish list. If only, dot, dot, dot. I would like to have that Jeannie in a wine bottle. Really, that's my bottle, that's mine. And on a serious note, in that part of the process, we're looking for more of that. We want to incorporate more of those kinds of things to figure out what things we can let go of and what things we can incorporate more of. I really, I mean, right now we can add any of your ideas to see how it will, as we do the rewrite. And so I'll definitely keep that in mind. I really appreciated what Jackie was saying. Yeah, I would love that wine bottle. I would love that Jeannie in a wine bottle because I think all deaf people just want, you know, everyone to be able to understand it and not even think about it. So thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So we could talk all night long, night after night. So we did limit this Q&A to just an hour. And I think there was just one more comment. Joanne D. Joanne D. Joanne D. Great job and a great job. And she is looking forward to seeing the full production and the animation, the research, how it all blended together. It was a completely immersive experience for the hearing audience. So thank you so much, Joanne. Thank you. And Monique, do you have anything that you would like to add before we wrap up for the evening? Again, if you didn't have an opportunity to ask your question or something might come up later for you, you can go ahead and email Kori at IRT and she will forward me all of your comments. I really do wanna understand what you got, your feedback. It's really gonna help me with the rewrite. So thank you. And we really hope that you enjoy the show as well as the panel. And I wanna thank everyone who joined us this evening of the audience and the panelists as well and the interpreters. And thank you so much to you all. Thank you. And hope you all have a wonderful evening.