 not the major theme than at least a partial theme, questions of communication, of understanding of language in particular, as a bilingual or, correct me, trilingual, how many linguals are you? Try, I'll think, okay, I'll think three. Great. As a trilingual artist, most of her work tends to play with language quite a bit. This play obviously does it quite a bit. This play obviously does it. And so a DD has also been represented on stages around the country, and she's been the recipient of several major awards, including a New Play Development Award granted by the NEA and the New Play Institute when it was housed at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. So that's the DD in a nutshell, completely sort of not adequate to describe the complexity of her work, but it's a start. To my right is Bonnie Kaplan, who is the Director of Cultural Affairs for BSA, Massachusetts, which is the state organization for disability and the arts. And because Bonnie has about a million major accomplishments, I'm going to cheat for a second and read. So in addition to her other work at the BSA, she also is in charge of the Open Door Gallery, Boston Art Reach, Inclusive by Design, and in the past, the National Cultural Access Institute. She provides technical assistance to program participants on universal program design and development of inclusive audiences, especially serving people who are deaf or hard of hearing. One of the things that I think makes Bonnie a perfect co-participant in this event today with the DD about the world of this play and about what it means to intersect with this play is that not only does Bonnie have all of these amazing other qualifications, but she's no stranger to theater, having co-produced several things, including the show of hands deaf theater festival. So today, we're here, and we're going to have a conversation for a little while between Bonnie and Aditi and myself. And then we're going to take questions from the audience. So if you think of something, hold on to it. We will come back to you in about 20 minutes. In the meantime, I should probably say who I am. My name is Ilana Brownstein, and I am the director of new work here at Hump A1. I also served a conversation for a little while between Bonnie and Aditi and myself. And then we're going to take questions from the audience. So if you think of something, hold on to it. We will come back to you in about 20 minutes. In the meantime, I should probably say who I am. My name is Ilana Brownstein, and I am the director of new work here at Hump A1. I also served as the dramaturg on this show, which means that one of my jobs was to discover and present pathways into the world of the play for all of the various constituencies, whether that's the actors, the designers, the company, the community, or you in this room right now. So this kind of event that we're doing here is part of our larger goal in terms of finding new ways to communicate with a wider group of people who live and work and make Boston their home, and potentially are willing to have a conversation with us. We're really glad all of you are here. And to our online audiences, we're really glad you're here, too. And we look forward to whatever questions you might have. You can use the Twitter hashtag, number sign, new play in order to communicate with us during this event. This event will be about 45, 50 minutes, give or take. And afterwards, there'll be time to chat with any of us. We'll remain around, and you can ask us any further questions you might have. So with that, let's get started. Hi, AdiDi. Hi. I will add, I guess, that we will just have to make some allowances for the weirdness of technology and Wi-Fi. AdiDi's audio is coming through perfectly. It's a little bit choppy in the video. I'm sure it's the same for her in terms of our video. So we will roll with the punches, I'm sure. So AdiDi, I wanted to start by getting you to just talk very briefly about the impetus for writing this play. It is unusual for a hearing playwright to decide to take on deaf culture so intimately, as you did. And I think you'd be great if you could share with our audiences what the inspiration for that was. The very first seeds of this play happened when I worked a lot with the deaf performers. I've voiced quite a bit with deaf performers. And one very good friend is Nick Zacko, who is one of my favorite performers, deaf or hearing, or in general, one of my favorite performers. And I was voicing for her in a show at Mixed Love Theater. And at the same time, I was researching Sanskrit for a fiction project I was working on. And I was struck by a kind of poetic similarity between the two languages. And I had this idea of what if I wrote something where a deaf woman in a Sanskrit soler fell in love faced entirely on the affinity between their languages. And the first thing I did was try to write it as a short story, and it didn't work at all. It was terrible. And then a few years later, I thought I had a play because ASL is amazing on stage. And I will say this, I didn't set out to write a play about deaf culture so much as to write a play that had both deaf and hearing characters in it, kind of in a naturalistic way, which is I think the difference while I made Nick and her partner, Lisa, talked to me so much during the time we created this play. That was more so that I could get deeper into their characters than anything else. But it's a play that has both deaf and hearing characters, which is why I think it falls into this interesting and between category, between deaf and hearing theater. At small and large stages, both. One of the things you and I have talked about is the challenges and opportunities that producing this play allows for a company that has not necessarily previously worked intimately with deaf artists or with the deaf community. So being a playwright and having watched this across a couple of different theaters over time, can you talk a little bit about your perception of what some of the challenges are and where some of the common successes are around this? Oh, I think right when theaters embark on the play, consistently, they usually don't know quite what they're getting into. If you have to work with deaf artists or in collaboration with deaf theaters before, there's no way you can anticipate all the different kind of treasures and challenges that are ahead of you. So I don't work with people, I always don't, but I'm telling people not to be my play, but I'm really just trying to warn them so that they go in with eyes of the very challenging piece of theater. That's it, that's it, that's it. What must be working way through those challenges to make it a fluid and beautiful play and not just this thing where you're worrying about how are you gonna cue this actor and how are you gonna make sure that this actor who doesn't know ASL understands what we're doing, all of that bilingual stuff. Once you get through that, once you figure out what it is to work with an amazing sign master who enhances what you're creating, what it is to work with interpreters in the room all the time, and all your words are going through the interpreters, be you deaf or hearing, everything is going through these interpreters and you're so dependent on them. Once you get through all of that, interpreters and you're so dependent on them, once you get through all of that, I feel like the experience of succeeding with this play is a big part of the awesome thing about doing it because it's going through something huge together. Because it's going through something huge together. It is challenging and it's fabulous when it actually works. I think that's what, and then for the audiences, the next step of that is to interface with the audiences and seeing audiences experience something completely unfamiliar in the space is to me, since I usually just see production, I don't always get in there. I very personally get in there in the process that I just hear about it by email with panics or in emails. But the audience experience, to me, is one of the more amazing things because both the hearing and deaf audiences, it's so rich, it's so rich for a hearing audience to be in some kind of, you know, and to experience this multilingual thing where they are occasionally left out in a really poetic, significant way. And it's so great for deaf audiences, I think, to be in a space that is just inclusive, it's just part of the story, the deaf character and the language is just part of the story. They're not looking off to the side for their interpreter, they're experiencing it as a cohesive artistic entity which has a big part of what I wanted from this play. Access is a wonderful thing. This play is about violent wellness and not about access, if that makes sense. That does make sense, and I think that's a really incontinuous conversation because indeed I think the important thing that art can do is not necessarily that we provide access to everybody but that the storytelling itself becomes the point of it, that the storytelling is inclusive. Hi! Sorry, this is one of my daughters, she has a beautiful lead, all these are big ones. Here is about the way that the bilingual quality of the script and of the process makes it possible for multiple kinds of people, and I use the term kinds in all different ways, whether it's language or something else, or identity that all people have access to a really centralized story, and that seems very different from plays that are simply interpreted to be accessible. I think that's one, maybe I wanna turn this over to Bonnie for a second. I'm just gonna turn this here so that we can see each other. Bonnie, do you wanna talk for a moment? Maybe you can start with, you just saw this play on Friday, and if you have anything, do you have anything you wanna start with from the experience of watching it? That's great. And also maybe to take a moment to talk about this concept of access versus bilingualism, do you have anything you wanna add about that? And we're gonna, as we do this, we've got a voicer who's gonna turn on her mic, and there we are. To be honest, before I got to the venue, I really had no idea what to expect from this play. The only thing that I knew was, first of all, that it would be fully inclusive, and secondly, that both hearing and deaf characters were written in. So I was really looking forward to that. At the same time, I had no idea how the story would progress, and really my mind was blown. I was trying to think what I was saying to myself, I wish that more theater was like this, that then the theater community would be in a better place, and I really have you to thank for that. And I'm hoping that other theater companies will see this production and realize, you know, oh, it's not so bad, it's not so complicated. If they can do it, we can do it too. And really, honestly, the deaf community is hungry for this kind of thing in mainstream theater. We're tired of having a separate place for ourselves. And also, I want to add, one thing that's cool about this, is that I can come to this show any time. I did not have, it was not pretty picked for me which day I came, because usually, typically there is a limited number of dates that there will be an interpreted event. You can only come on Wednesday, or you can only come on Sunday afternoon, or Saturday morning, you know, two o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm sorry, we want to have equal access to the theater. So this play was really a perfect example because it was fully accessible. And I was also watching the hearing audience's reaction. There were moments where the stage was completely silent. And people were looking at each other because they didn't know how to respond to that kind of situation. They didn't know what they had missed. And you know, for me, I thought that I had missed something too, and realized that it was on purpose. This is part of the playwriting. You want us to have similar experiences in the audience. So I did it the way that you wrote this, the way that it was expressed, could not be done any better. I'm still amazed at how you were able to share your personal experiences, your experiences in deaf theater and with deaf community, and working for the hearing community as well, and able to put that on paper. And really, the storytelling allowed us to be part of this. And I'm hoping to see more things like this in the future. So thank you so much, David. Aditi, I wonder if you can spend a moment, oh, we've got some major props going on. I'm wondering if you can take a moment and talk about, from your point of view, as the playwright, as the person in whose brain this play originally performed itself and had to sort of work itself out on paper and through the development process, I feel like in your conversations with me, you've been talking about how it's important for there to be an audience that has both hearing members and deaf members side by side. Bonnie was just talking about what that meant for her to have that. As a playwright, what does that mean for you? It's, you know, I feel like the degree to which I get political in my work, which I don't, I'm not an activist playwright per se, but I do feel like I'd like to see more on our stages that reflects more of the society that we are. And it's not because I'm trying to make a point, it's more because it's more interesting that way, you know? And the stories are richer and more complex. And I think for me, the experience of, so theater for me, it happens somewhere between the performance and the audience. It's not just the production. It's somewhere in the air between the performance and the audience. And it's in the, the piece of my theater is so great and actually is different from TV and film, which I very much enjoy TV and film. But live theater is different because there's something about that energy that you send off when you're sitting at a house full of people, you know? But there's humans up there on the stage and there's, there's like an unspoken communion and connection that's happening between everyone. And I feel, boom, I think, that makes me, oh my God. You! Oh, look, I can see her behind the camera. I feel like that experience of a multiplicity of experience and the multiplicity of experiences on the stage, having people sitting next to you, such a troublemaker, having people sitting next to you who are experiencing the laugh at a different time in the life who are taking in through a lens that's different from yours and you can feel their body, you can feel how they're emotionally connecting and it's making you connect on that level too, that kind of mind, that the mind that happens to the audience is a really beautiful thing for me. I'm not kidding, you're gonna end up with no ice cream for dessert. That's cool. So there's a good effect that I love when people in the pre-star parks there is, there's a lot of noise, there's that whole scene, but then the scene between the two women that's completely sad, that happens. The deaf audience is cool with it. They're laughing, they're with them like from the first moment of that scene. The hearing audience, usually there's this rock, a school in this comfort that happens. Can you repeat that? Where they're like, who is it? From the first moment? Yeah, we have a technical issue. To say, the place we lost you was, you were about to say something about, you talked about how the deaf audience was seen to that moment, but the hearing audience has a different experience of the silent scene. So if you can just kick up what you were saying there. So the deaf audience is obviously very comfortable with the silent ASL scene. If anything, it's pure because no one's going to leave their lips around and try to make all that noise, right? You are serious, you're going to be in so much trouble, go. You can't ask for that help. The hearing audience, almost every single production has seen, at the beginning of that scene, there's this rustle of discomfort amongst them because it's so quiet and it's so uncomfortable that it's so quiet, that good. And then it passes. And it passes as they get into the story because there's amazing storytelling and acting generally going on up there on the stage. And it also passes because they notice and they feel that the deaf audience is so comfortable and that makes them comfortable. And it's okay to just relax and be in a silent space for a lot and that's really, I don't know, I love that. I love the shift in our mind and in our bodies and in our breathing that happens with that. Yeah, the mix of audience, the mix of the characters on stage, it's just a really special thing for me. To create change, especially if the storytelling is heartfelt or pure or complex enough. As somebody who works day to day with the arts as a means of access, do you think that sits with your own personal opinions or with the work you do? So I see performers in my work daily and work with hearing interpreters on site and every time I go to a show, I always tell myself, I wish, I just wish that everything could become deaf world, so to speak. Because I feel that the deaf community has not really given a lot of opportunities to really show or really to see what's going on all over the country. There are fabulous deaf actors just waiting to be discovered. They just need an opportunity. But unfortunately, society and hearing society, we want, it says we want Marla Metton because she won the award. And it's like, wait a minute, we have other talented actors out there who haven't been given an opportunity to show what they can do. And from whom the organization can become even better. So that's one of my frustrations. I don't see that opportunity happening in my job often enough. And that's one of the reasons that the Deaf Theatre Festival back in 2005 was a passion of mine. I wish that I could repeat that. People are so hungry for ASL in storytelling and on the stage. So from that event, it was a three day festival. I received so much feedback, so much positive feedback. People asking when we could have this kind of thing again. I wish that it was easy to do again. We have a lot of support from the hearing community to help make it happen. And maybe someday it will. Maybe someday it will happen again. But what hearing theater companies don't realize is that millions of audience members, it's only when they can fully open the doors to the Deaf community when it's a two way street, when Deaf artists can show their work. And you've made that possible. So I'm hoping that this production and this play will become a model. And I want to thank Company One for being brazen and bold enough to challenge themselves. And it was a great success. I actually have a question for you. Elana, are you up for a question? Yeah. When you first read this story, what was your first impression? I actually, so I will say that I was lucky enough to lay my hands on a copy of the script when it was still, I think, maybe just after its first production or clip, maybe it was still in development. The original dramaturge on the play was a friend of mine. She had been telling me about it and I said, I have to read that play. And so she put me in touch with Adi. And Adi and I, for a long time, were nice friends, but we never met in person because she sent me the script and I read it and my jaw fell on the floor. I thought, not only does this play have an interesting story about people. So there are interesting people, interesting things happen to them. And that's, for me, my definition of good theater is that a good story, well told. So we had that, but on top of that, you had sort of the intense theatricality of bodies moving through space and time in a way that was unusual for me to see on the stage. It used the elements, as Adi talked about, the elements of silence for the hearing audience. It used the elements of ASL, but in lots of different ways. One of the things that I, and not just me, certainly the entire production team and audiences and company have discovered through the performance of this that I don't think is actually possible to know when you're reading it on the page, but actually comes alive when the actor takes this on is Jackie. Jackie, are you in the room? Hi, Jackie. Jackie, our actor who serves as the sort of central interpreter in the play between death and hearing worlds, like Maggie. One of the things that Jackie talked about, forgive me if I speak on your behalf, you can throw out anything that you like if I get it wrong. One of the things Jackie talked about was the problem of SimCon, simultaneous communication, trying to speak and sign two different languages, essentially, at the same time. And the complexities of that are not just difficult sort of intellectually, but they're difficult politically. And that was something that I, that has become one of the most interesting things about this play that I didn't even know about until we were in the middle of it. So I think that this is one of those scripts that as you, when you read it, it is one experience, which I thought was stunning and beautiful. And as you work on it and discover more and more about what it means to actually put it in practice, that to me has been stunning as we've gone through it. And I mean, I'm trying not to be hyperbolic here, trying not to exaggerate, but the complexities for me as a theater artist working on this script have been equal to any of the best classical literature like Shakespeare or La Lourier, any of those things that yield themselves layer after layer after layer as you work on it. I think none of us actually, as Danny says, none of us knew what we were getting into when we started the project. And that's probably okay. Like, in fact, I know that's okay. And you just kind of have to be willing to do it. So for us, I think that's been an amazing process. And for Bevin, the director, who sadly just had to leave, but I hope she won't mind speaking on her behalf, Bevin didn't know sign language before deciding to work on the supply and embarked on a course of ASL so that she could effectively communicate in the rehearsal hall and has become pretty good at it, right? She pretty much doesn't need the interpreters when talking to the actors or we also have a deaf lighting designer who worked on this play. So that's been really, it's been great, I think, for the hearing artists involved in the production. It's been really great to sort of have access to a new mode of expression and a new mode of communication that I think for a lot of hearing people, it can be scary because we're afraid of maybe giving a fence and doing a play like this makes it easier to not be afraid of that. We see in the background the parallels of being a working mother, since we all know. Everyone, we have got enough involved here to play, so we are from Bevin now. That's fantastic, great job, you guys. Thank you. It was like... Ah! Seriously, I can't take it from you. Have fun. So one more question on my mind. I'll ask you. After doing this, what kind of advice would you give to another theater company taking us on? What message, if any, would you give to them? My central piece of advice is to know that there is no way to know what you're getting into before you start. And that, in fact, that's the deal with making art in general. That if you try and plan it all out in advance, you will clearly fail, because whatever that plan was will stop being useful about three days in. Instead of speaking for the company, I'll speak for myself for a moment. I have had one of the most profound artistic experiences of my life working on this play because it has given me lots of opportunity to think and talk about things that are not part of my daily life. And to me, that's what theater is for. So if I were to talk to another company to say, you know, why do we play like this? I actually think one of the greatest benefits is that it helps us as a theater company really be in conversation with a part of our community that beforehand we weren't in conversation with. And if we're invested in making art and if anybody is invested in making art, the point should be to create those paths of connection. So my advice to other companies would be to take it on and to know that you don't know what you're doing. And the best thing you can do is be transparent about that. You can be transparent and just say, I don't know. That gets you a long way, as we have discovered with all of our amazing, amazing help on this production from the deaf community. We could not have done it without their help. And without your help, frankly. So that becomes a real value to us as a company who has as its mission and interest in the community. Other companies may not have that interest and that's okay, that's their business. But for us and for other companies like us, I think that it makes a big impact. I'm wondering now if maybe this would be a great time to open this up to questions from the audience. So a little word about logistics. Here's how this is gonna go. We'll work this out as we go as I'm just mentioning about being transparent. Here's me being transparent. If you have a question, if you could be so kind as to raise your hand and I'll figure out what order we'll call on people. And if I call on you, if you could stand up, give the interpreter a moment to find you in the room and if you are going to be speaking, we'll hand you a microphone. And so we'll take these questions from the audience. The questions can be from Bonnie or Adi, or yeah, I guess, but they're more interesting, so ask them. And every once in a while, I'm sure we'll get a couple of questions in from the Twitter audience and I'll sort of, I'll get a signal from the back of the room that lets us know that that's happening. We'll take that question. So if you are going to be asking a question, you're gonna be signing, it will be voiced for you as you sign. And if you are speaking, it will be interpreted up here. So that's sort of how we'll try and make this work. So who wants to be great? Do we have a question they want to start with? Sabrina? Our free has a question. Personally, since being involved in your story with a hearing partner in the play, I have wondered if you have seen stories about deaf and hearing couples who went to the play and have felt an effect from it at home. I'm wondering if you've had any gossip or any fan mail about that. If it has caused any domestic disputes or anything in the opposite direction of people really figuring out how they're gonna make this work. So I was just curious about that. Fun, hold on. Go, go, go, go. I, you know, I get asked, yeah, but I'm just an out, now, out. I get asked a lot. And my good friend, Nick, is a deaf artist who is in, clearly in control of my work. I, I, I'm a quick friend of mine. Lisa, who is a hearing and who acts as her interpreter in life, you know? And so when I started writing this play, I don't think I knew that I was going to try to make it fully black-outed. Well, I just knew that that was a huge part of their relationship. The fact that whenever they were in the world, Lisa was Nick's access point. It was a hearing gathering. And if it was a deaf gathering, Lisa is extremely proficient. So then they were both very comfortable. And it's a relationship. And it shifts the nature of, from the relationship, they're, they're like the coolest couple in the world. It's funny, when they first read the play, they said, how do you know how we fight? And I said, I don't. That was me and my husband, nothing. Fuck, hey, I'm just like, I have nothing to fight on in life. I just, you know, people are full of people's life. And I can go, I write from the life yet, and what I know. And I'm sorry, I can tell you guys never fight, you're too full of life. But, you know, the inspiration certainly came from the fact that each two of them had this text bond, language-wise, a lot of it appearing. So there's additional facets to their relationship when they're in the world. And there's a fact that Lisa, whenever they're, when we go to a bar together, Lisa's hands are always going, but she's great, she's like, oh, she's always fine. It's, you know, it's a part of their world, a part of their reality. So a lot of them was inspired by them. But then a lot of them, a lot of them was inspired by them. But then a lot of them, the relationship, you know, I've been married for a lot of years. I think every, I'm amazed. I think that this was a successful, a successful endeavor. So props to you and also to company one. Because you have really opened some doors. You are truly pioneers, breaking down barriers for other companies. So thank you company one. I'd like to add, you are truly pioneers, breaking down barriers for other companies. So thank you company one. I'd like to add, I'd like to add Steve's comment, if I may, Steve's comment, if I may. He mentioned, Adibi, that you are brave as a hearing playwright to write this story as a hearing person. The deaf community can be very sensitive and also very political, very quickly made political. But you made it clear that you are involving the deaf community during the writing process and also asking for their feedback, their input. And I think that that was invaluable. That that was what led to acceptance for you. I think that if you had gone on on your own and written this play without any of that input and without any of that involvement, it may have been a very different reaction. I'm gonna to add, it was obvious that deaf people were involved in this production. I can tell from the first minute, helping with the language and making sure that the signing was clear. I really want to applaud the cast. They did a fantastic job. I was inspired. I am also in hearing and deaf relationship. And it made me laugh. In the beginning of that relationship, there were a lot of cultural conflicts. And we were showing some of that like the sign for poetry. I mean, really. You know, it's like the sign for music. And hearing people love music. And everyone's always saying, why don't you deaf like music? You know, so, I enjoyed it. Congratulations to all of the cast. Great job to all of you. And of course, the author as well. Thank you. And I just signed up for the art of my chair. So, I'm gonna say that at the end of my... I have a question for somebody in the audience. I hope, Alberto, you don't mind if I single you out. Do it. So, Alberto was one of our, he's our sign master essentially. And one of our ASL consultants. And I wanted to ask you, Alberto, if you would, if you had anything you wanted to add about what it is, there was a comment about the precision of the sign. The language that the actors were able to use. Can you talk about just, because I think the position of sign master is probably mysterious to people who have not had that experience before. Can you say on anything about what that was for you? As somebody working on the show? I have to say, I'm thrilled to have been part of this team. And one thing that I have to say is that, what a wonderful experience to work with this company, it's been great to work with the cast, with the company. So, I had three different roles. I was an ASL consultant to the career cast, also to the deaf cast, both for the folks who were proficient already and for the folks who weren't. So my job was to help hearing folks on stage, gesture, and come up with their own family or intimate level of sign language. And also, one person may be able to sign something fluently, but one may sign the same thing more sloppily. So we had to keep them at that level of fluency. When I read the script, I had to, at that point, figure out the background of the characters. Okay, so they're from the Midwest, they're from Minneapolis, so that has a certain accent to it in ASL. And how does that affect the characters and their signing and what their language looks like? We have some actors who are really beautiful signers, and we have to make them look a little bit less proficient, and that was a huge responsibility. So, that's the concept, that's what I was doing here during rehearsals, so. Thank you, Albert, I'm sorry to put you on the spot. Aditi, can you talk for a moment about for you as a playwright, I know that you also have, in the creation process, you had to think a lot about when your words were gonna stay your words, and when they would be given over to a sign master and to other, to actors who have their own styles of sign, right, that it can't, I mean, playwrights have to do this all the time with actors and their words, but for you, I think it was a little bit different. Anyone say anything about that? Yeah, I mean, I knew that in the end, all of the ASL that I was writing would end up being translated, and differently for every production, by whichever sign master and the team and the director and the actors, and one of the really beautiful things to me about the process of deaf actors is that as their characters evolve, as their understanding of their characters evolves, what they're saying also changes, and that's very different from hearing theater where you have to say those words, I don't care if you're feeling differently today or if you wanted this character to go so, you have to say these words. That's not the case with deaf theater, because oh, you know what, if we're gonna go that way, then maybe this sign choice is better and so it evolves. So I don't have the kind of control over the things that get translated into ASL as I do over the things that will be spoken by an actor in English. That said, I also have to find, like so the balance I needed to find was, I needed to find the balance between letting the language be direct enough that it wouldn't be difficult to translate, and at the same time making sure that what ended up on the screen as what ended up on the screen as access for the hearing audience was interesting and had tension and energy and poetry to it so that it wouldn't be uninteresting for the hearing audience. It doesn't understand the sign. So the weird balancing act, and I think over the first three productions, it evolved, like we discovered, oh, invariably we discovered that something I couldn't not be translated into ASL. It was untranslatable the way I've written it because I pulled in some metaphor into it that just was not possible. So either I simplify or I say, can you help me come up with a metaphor that does work? And then this amazing group of sign masters and actors would play with it, they'd play with the idea, they'd say, why do you care about this? Why do you need a symbol? They'd think of something, I hope all of that we want, and then somewhere between us, we'd come up with the English when the ASL would work. And even so, I know that as it goes into every single future production, it, as it goes into every single production, it is getting reinvented. And I hope the language I created has enough pliability and enough guilt to it that that is something that can happen with every future production. And at the same time, I hope that the language I created has enough structure that the characters will remain censured and sound the way that I want them to. Like it's very important to me that certain characters be very tough and be very strong and defensive. And I don't want that to morph into a gentleness and a fleeting. So I try really hard in the language to lock that down. And at the same time, allow a space for them to be tough in whatever way this actor does tough with their language. It's a weird balance, it's a very big part. I still haven't figured it out or anything, but I hope the script has space in it for that kind of creativity with each change. Right, yeah, it's an interesting challenge as a writer to have to think on all of those levels at once. We have other questions from the audience. Oh wait, yes, we have a Twitter question. What does Twitter have to say? Hello, Twitter is wondering, where are the Sanskrit audiences? Well, I guess we don't have that. Yes, we don't have that. Because it's going through something huge together. It is challenging and it's fabulous when it actually works. And then for the audiences, the next step of that is to interface with the audiences and seeing audiences experience something completely unfamiliar in the space is to me, since I usually just see production, I don't always get in there. I very, very seldom get in there in the process that just you're about to buy email with panties or any emails. But the audience experience, to me, is one of the more amazing things because both for hearing and deaf audiences, it's so rich, it's so rich for a hearing audience to be in silence and to experience this multilingual thing where they are occasionally left out in a really poetic, significant way. And it's so great for deaf audiences, I think, to be in a space that is just inclusive, it's just part of the story. The deaf character and the language is just part of the story. They're not looking off to the side for their interpreter. They're experiencing it as a piece of artistic entity which has a big part of what I wanted from this play. Access is a wonderful thing. This play is about violent wellness and not about access, if that makes sense. That does make sense. And I think that's a really unique conversation because indeed, I think the important thing that art can do is not necessarily that we provide access but that the storytelling itself becomes the point of it. The storytelling is inclusive. Hi! Sorry, this is one of my daughters, yeah. You're bleeding, all these are big ones. Hi! Hi! He's in his room. He's in his room. You're up in? Good luck. The whole winter is over. We are talking back here is about the way that the bilingual quality of the script and of the process makes it possible for multiple kinds of people. And I use the term kinds in all different ways or identity that all people can have access to a really centralized story. And that seems very different from plays that are simply interpreted to be accessible. I think that's what, maybe I want to turn this over to Bobby for a second. I'm just gonna turn this here so that see each other. Bonnie, do you want to talk for a moment? Maybe you can start with, you just saw this play on Friday. And if you have anything, you have anything you want to start with from the experience of watching it. That's great. And also maybe to take a moment to talk about this concept of access versus bilingualism. Do you have anything you want to add about that? And we're gonna, as we do this, we've got a voicer who's gonna turn on her mic. To be honest, before I got to the venue, I really had no idea what to expect from this play. The only thing that I knew was, first of all, that it would be fully inclusive. And secondly, that both hearing and deaf characters were written in. So I was really looking forward to that. At the same time, I had no idea how the story would progress. And really my mind was blown. I'm trying to think, what was I saying to myself? I wish that more theater was like this. That then the theater community would be in a better place. And I really have you to thank for that. And I'm hoping that other theater companies will see this production and realize, you know, it's not so bad, it's not so complicated. If they can do it, we can do it too. And really, honestly, the deaf community is hungry for this kind of thing in mainstream theater. We're tired of having a separate place for ourselves. And also, I want to add, one thing that's cool about this is that I can come to this show anytime. I did not have, it was not pre-picked for me which day I came. Because usually, typically, there is a limited number of dates that there will be an interpreted event. You can only come on Wednesday. Or you can only come on Sunday afternoon. Or Saturday morning. You know, two o'clock in the afternoon. And I'm sorry, we want to have equal access to the theater. This play was really a perfect example because it was fully accessible. And I was also watching the hearing audience's reaction. There were moments where the stage was completely silent. And people were looking at each other because they didn't know how to respond to that kind of situation. They didn't know what they had missed. And, you know, for me, I thought that I had missed something too. And realized that it was on purpose. This is part of the playwriting. You want us to have similar experiences in the audience. So I did it the way that you wrote this, the way that it was expressed, could not be done any better. I'm still amazed at how you were able to share your personal experiences, your experiences in deaf theater and with deaf community, and working for the hearing community as well, and able to put that on paper. And really, the storytelling allowed us to be part of this. And I'm hoping to see more things like this in the future. So thank you so much, David. Aditi, I wonder if you can spend a moment. Oh, we've got some major props going on. I'm wondering if you can take a moment and talk about, from your point of view, as the playwright, as the person in whose brain this play originally performed itself and had to sort of work itself out on paper and through the development process, I feel like in your conversations with me, you've been talking about how it's important for there to be an audience that has both hearing members and deaf members side by side. And Bonnie was just talking about what that meant for her to have that. As a playwright, what does that mean for you? It's, you know, I feel like the degree to which I get political in my work, which I don't, I'm not an activist playwright per se, but I do feel like I'd like to see more on our stages that reflects more the society that we are. And it's not because I'm trying to make a point, it's more because it's more interesting that way, you know? And the stories are richer and more complex. And I think for me, the experience of, so theater for me, it happens somewhere between the performance and the audience. It's not just the production, it's somewhere in the air between the performance and the audience. And it's in the, the reason my theater is so great and actually is different from TV and film, which I very much enjoy TV and film. But live theater is different because there's something about that energy that Bonnie, that you send out when you're sitting at a household of people, you know, but there's humans up there on the stage and there's, there's like a unspoken communion and connection that's happening between everyone. And I feel, boom, like that, it's, oh my God. You, Bonnie. I see her behind me. I feel like that experience of a multiplicity experience and the multiplicity of experiences on the stage, having people sitting next to you, such a troublemaker, having people sitting next to you who are experiencing the laugh at a different time in the life, who are taking in through a lens that's different from yours and you can feel their body, you can feel how they're emotionally connected to that thing. And it's making you connect on that level too. That kind of mind, that the mind that happens in the audience is a really beautiful thing for me. I'm not kidding. You're gonna end up with no ice cream for dessert. That's cool. So there's a good effect that I love when people, when they play Star Trek stories, there's a lot of noise, there's that whole scene. But then the scene between the two women that's completely sad, the laugh that happens. The deaf audience is cool with it. They're laughing. They're with them from the first moment of that scene. The hearing audience, usually there's this rock, a- Hold on, hold on. Come here. Remember how it happens? Can you repeat that? Where they're like, ooh, from the audience? Yeah, we have- The hearing audience. Oh, okay. The place we lost you was, you were about to say something about, you talked about how the deaf audience was seen to that moment, but the hearing audience has a different experience of the silent scene. So if you can just kick up what you were saying there. So the deaf audience is obviously very comfortable with the silent ASL scene. If anything, it's pure because no one's going to leave their lips around and try to like make all that noise, right? You are serious. You're going to be so much trouble. Go. You can't ask for that help. The hearing audience, almost every single production has seen. At the beginning of that scene, there's this rustle of discomfort amongst them because it's so quiet and it's so uncomfortable that it's so quiet. That's it. And then it passes. And it passes as they get into the story because there's amazing stories like acting generally going on up there on the stage. And it also passes because they notice and they feel that the deaf audience is so comfortable and that makes them comfortable. And it's okay to just relax and be in a silent space for a while. And that's really, I don't know, I love that. I love the shift in our mind and in our bodies and in our breathing that happens with that. Yeah, the mix of audience, the mix of the characters on stage is just a really special thing for me. Create change, especially if the storytelling is heartfelt or pure or works day to day with the arts as a means of access. That sits with your own personal opinions or with the work you do to save performers in my work daily and work with hearing interpreters on site. And every time I go to a show, I always tell myself, I wish, I just wish that everything could become a deaf world, so to speak. Because I feel that the deaf community has not really given a lot of opportunities to really show or really to see what's going on all over the country. There are fabulous deaf actors just waiting to be discovered. They just need an opportunity. But unfortunately, society and hearing society, we want Mark says, we want Marla Madden because she won the award. And it's like, wait a minute, we have other talented actors out there who haven't been given an opportunity to show what they can do. And from whom the organization can become better. So that's one of my frustrations. I don't see that opportunity happening in my job often enough. And that's one of the reasons that the Deaf Theatre Festival back in 2005 was a passion of mine. I wish that I could repeat that. People are so hungry for ASL in storytelling and on the stage. So from that event, it was a three day festival. I received so much feedback, so much positive feedback, people asking when we could have this kind of thing again. I wish that it was easy to do again. We have a lot of support from the hearing community to help make it happen. And maybe someday it will, maybe someday it will happen again. But what hearing theater companies don't realize is that millions of audience members that they're losing out there. It's only when they can fully open the doors to the deaf community, when it's a two-way street, when deaf artists can show their work. And you've made that possible. So I'm hoping that this production and this play will become a model. And I want to thank Company One for being brazen and bold enough to challenge themselves. And it was a great success. I actually have a question for you. Alana, are you up for a question? Yeah. When you first read this story, what was your first impression? I actually, so I will say that I was lucky enough to lay my hands on a copy of the script when it was still, I think maybe just after its first production or play, maybe it was still in development. The original dramaturge on the play was a friend of mine. She had been telling me about it and I said, I have to read that play. And so she put me in touch with Aditi. And Aditi and I, for a long time, we're nice friends, but we never met in person because she sent me the script and I read it and my jaw fell on the floor. I thought, not only does this play have an interesting story about people. So there are interesting people, interesting things happen to them. And that's, for me, my definition of good theater is that a good story, well told. So we had that, but on top of that, you had sort of the intense theatricality of bodies moving through space and time in a way that was unusual for me to see on the stage. It used the elements, as Aditi talked about, the elements of silence for the hearing audience. It used the elements of ASL, in lots of different ways. One of the things that I, and not just me, certainly the entire production team and audiences and company have discovered through the performance of this that I don't think is actually possible to know when you're reading it on the stage, but actually comes alive when the actor takes this on is Jackie. Jackie, are you in the room? Hi, Jackie. Jackie, our actor who serves as the sort of central interpreter in the play between death and hearing worlds, like Maggie. One of the things that Jackie talked about, and forgive me if I speak on your behalf, you can throw in anything that you like if I get it wrong, one of the things Jackie talked about was the problem of SimCon, simultaneous communication. Trying to speak and sign two different languages, essentially, at the same time. And the complexities of that are not just difficult intellectually, but they're difficult politically. And that was something that I, that has become one of the most interesting things about this play that I didn't even know about until we were in the middle of it. So I think that this is one of those scripts that as you, when you read it, it is one experience, which I thought was stunning and beautiful. And as you work on it and discover more and more about what it means to actually put it in practice, that to me has been stunning as we've gone through it. And I mean, I'm trying not to be hyperbolic here, trying not to exaggerate, but the complexities for me as a theater artist working on this script have been equal to any of the best classical literature like Shakespeare, or Molière, any of the things that yield themselves layer after layer after layer as you work on it. I think none of us actually, as Adity says, none of us knew what we were getting into when we started the project. And that's probably okay. Like, in fact, I know that's okay. And you just kind of have to be willing to do it. So for us, I think that's been an amazing process. And for Bevin, the director who sadly just had to leave, but I hope she won't mind speaking on her behalf, Bevin didn't know sign language before deciding to work on this play and embarked on a course of ASL so that she could effectively communicate in the rehearsal hall and has become pretty good at it. Right, she pretty much doesn't need the interpreters when talking to the actors or we also have a deaf lighting designer who worked on this play. So that's been really great. I think for the hearing artists involved in the production, it's been really great to sort of have access to a new mode of expression and a new mode of communication that I think for a lot of hearing people it can be scary because we're afraid of maybe giving a fence and doing a play like this makes it easier to not be afraid of that. We see in the background the parallels of being a working mother, since we all know. Everyone, we have got a different role here in the play. We are from Lisa. That's a fantastic great job, you guys. Thank you. It was like, ah! Seriously, I cannot take this video. Actually. So one more question on that, if I may. I'll ask you. After doing this, what kind of advice would you give to another theatre company taking us on? What message, if any, would you give to them? My central piece of advice is to know that there is no way to know what you're getting into before you start and that, in fact, that's the deal with making art in general. That if you try and plan it all out in advance you will clearly fail because whatever that plan was will stop being useful about three days in. Instead of speaking for the company I'll speak for myself for a moment. I have had one of the most profound artistic experiences of my life working on this play because it has given me lots of opportunity to think and talk about things that are not part of my daily life and to me that's what theatre is for. So if I were to talk to another company to say, you know, why do we play like this? I actually think one of the greatest benefits is that it helps us as a theatre company really be in conversation with a part of our community that beforehand we weren't in conversation with. And if we're invested in making art and if anybody is invested in making art the point should be to create those paths of connection. So my advice to other companies would be to take it on and to know that you don't know what you're doing and the best thing you can do is be transparent about that. You can be transparent and just say, I don't know. That gets you a long way as we have discovered with all of our amazing, amazing help on this production from the deaf community that have done it without their help and without your help, frankly. So that becomes a real value to us as a company who has, as its mission and interest in the community. If companies may not have that interest and that's okay, that's their business. But for us and for other companies like us I think that it makes a big impact. I'm wondering now if maybe this would be a great time to open this up to questions from the audience. So a little word about logistics. Here's how this is gonna go. We'll work this out as we go as I'm just mentioning about being transparent. Here's me being transparent. If you have a question, if you can be so kind as to raise your hand and I'll figure out what order we'll call on people and if I call on you, if you could stand up give the interpreter a moment to find you in the room and if you are going to be speaking we'll hand you a microphone. And so we'll take these questions from the audience the questions can be from Bonnie or Adi or yeah I guess but they're more interesting so ask them. And every once in a while I'm sure we'll get a couple of questions in from the Twitter audience and I'll sort of I'll get a signal from the back of the room that lets us know that that's happening and we'll take that question. So if you are going to be asking questions you're deciding it will be voiced for you as you sign and if you are speaking it will be interpreted up here. So that's sort of how we'll try to make this work. So who wants to be raised? Do we have a question they want to start with? Sabrina? Our free has a question. Since being involved in your story with a hearing partner in the play in a while I have wondered if you have seen stories about deaf and hearing couples who went to the play and have felt an effect from it at home. I'm wondering if you've had any gossip or any fan mail about that if it has caused any domestic disputes or any or anything in the opposite direction of people really figuring out how they're going to make this work. So I'm just curious about that. Don't, don't, don't I you know I get asked a lot and my good friend Nick is a deaf artist who is in completely in control of my work. Lisa who acts as her interpreter in life you know and so when I started writing this play I don't think I knew that I was going to try to make it believe but well I just knew that that was a huge part of their relationship the fact that whenever they were in the world Lisa was Nick's access point it was a hearing gathering and it was a deaf gathering so then they were both very comfortable and it's a relationship and it shifts the nature from the coolest couple in the world it's funny when they first read the play they said how do you know how we fight and I said I don't I'm nothing I'm nothing about fighting I just you know people are full of people fight like that and when I know and sorry I'll tell you if I know but you know so the inspiration certainly came from the fact that each of them had this intense bond language-wise it was a hearing so there's this additional to their relationship when they were in the world and there's a fact that Lisa when we go to a bar together Lisa's hands are always she's always signing you know it's a part of their world a part of their reality so a lot of them was inspired by them but then a lot of them