This musical retelling of Huckleberry Finn is a fresh, unique experience that incorporated both signing for the Deaf and soaring vocal talent. The use of a non-speaking actor as Huck Finn and a speaking actor as Jim, the runaway slave, affords a re-examination of the pair's friendship, which is one of literature's more memorable treatments of race relations.

Both hearing and Deaf audiences will be delighted by the energy and spirit of this magnificent, truly unique production.

Note: We are sold out of our group discounts. Group sales can still help you with all of your ticketing needs for groups of 20 or more, but all tickets will be a full price. Discounts still available for some weekday matinees only.

Ticket Information
Ticketmaster..............................................(202) 397-7328
Box Office info only....................................(202) 347-4833
TTY...............................................................(202) 347-5599

Or visit their website at fordstheatre.org

REVIEWS/ARTICLES

Special TV interview segment in JC and Friends

Washington Informer Review - April 15, 2005

Georgetowner

Baltimore Sun Review - April 7, 2005

Fall Church News Press Article - April 6, 2005

Potomac Stages Review - March 31, 2005

Washington Times Review - March 26, 2005

Washington Post Review - March 25, 2005

Baltimore Sun Article - March 24, 2005

Washington Post Article - March 18, 2005

Washington DC Examiner Michael McElroy Interview - March 13, 2005

"Big River" Smartly Updates a Classic Story

By Edith Billups/ WI Staff Writer

April 15, 2005

In the Ford's Theatre production of "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," the runaway slave Jim tells Huck about an incident with his daughter in which he severely chastised the girl for not closing a door. After telling the child to obey is orders twice, Jim hits the girl, which brings tears to her eyes.

He realizes later that she did not close the door because she had gone deaf after contracting a fever and virus. The agony in his voice as he relates the injustice done to the child is just one of several moving moments in this groundbreaking theatrical experience.

"Big River" is a co-production with Ford's Theatre, Deaf West Theatre and Atlanta's Theatre of the Stars and includes deaf, hard of hearing and hearing actors. The performance utilizes spoken English, American Sign Language (ASL), gestures, song and dance.

The crowd was well populated with young people, but this is a show for all ages. Mark Twain's story about the friendship between a runaway Black slave and an adventurous, young white teen is not only timely, but it teaches an important lesson in these turbulent and chaotic times.

If there is one aspect of this performance that shines, it is the bonding between the actors. Michael McElroy, who received a Tony nomination for his dynamic portrayal of Jim on Broadway, relates with the deaf Huck, played engagingly by Galludet University student Christopher B. Corrigan, in a way that is both touching and genuine.

The show works because of the use of charismatic singer/musician Bill O'Brien, who plays author Mark Twain, while also supplying Huck. The interaction between the two is so synchronized it feels as if Corrigan is really speaking to the audience about tolerance and humanity dignity.

For Twain lovers, don't look for too much of the author's folksy, down-home humor. This is a musical with a mission, heavily imbued with thought provoking messages including a disturbing scene when a young girl is separated from her mother and sold to new owners in the South.

There also are images of recaptured runaway slaves in shackles, two conmen who scheme to sell Jim after he and Huck have befriended them, and Huck's own questioning of his decision to help Jim escape up north. Still, there are enough of composer Roger Miller's ("King of the Road") tunes to keep the show moving along.

The Big River Band, conducted by pianist Nick deGregorio, energetically performs "Do You Want to Go to Heaven?" "Waiting for the Light to Shine," "Muddy Water," and "Worlds Apart." O'Brien also plucks a mean banjo, completing an evening of catchy bluegrass melodies and spirituals.

In one defining moment in the show, the music stops and the actors sign in silence on stage. If you've ever wondered what it is like to be deaf, this is a moment when one can sense both the beauty and frustration of such a challenge.

"Big River" has several other notables in the cast, including Jeanette Bayardelle and Michelle A, Banks, who play the mother and daughter who are separated in the production. Their pairing on "How Blest We Are" and "Waiting for the Light to Shine" was particularly tender and moving, garnering deserved applause.

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'Big River' is a breathtaking ride
Huck Finn musical is performed by hearing, deaf actors

By J. Wynn Rousuck / Sun Theater Critic

April 7, 2005

A musical performed by a combination of hearing and deaf actors. The prospect sounds unwieldy, at the very least. But it's difficult to imagine a revival of Roger Miller and William Hauptman's Big River that flows more gracefully or resonates more meaningfully than the one co-produced by Deaf West Theatre at Ford's Theatre in Washington.

Not only does director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun's staging of this 1985 Huckleberry Finn musical succeed on multiple levels - visually, aurally, literally, metaphorically - but it is one of those rare and wonderful examples of a show that does what it is about.

In Mark Twain's novel, the story of the bond between young Huck and Jim, the runaway slave, is a tale of cross-cultural understanding. In this Tony Award-nominated revival - simultaneously spoken and signed in American Sign Language - the interaction between the hearing and deaf actors is its own demonstration of cross-cultural understanding.

And in almost every case, the interaction adds an extra layer of meaning. For instance, Christopher B. Corrigan, who plays Huck, is a deaf actor who signs his part. His words are voiced by Bill O'Brien, who also plays Mark Twain, the show's narrator. Because the novel is written from Huck's point of view, the casting reinforces the idea that Twain speaks through Huck.

Huck's father, on the other hand, is played by two identically dressed actors - Darren Frazier, who is hard of hearing, and Jay Lusteck, who is not. Together, they embody the novel's line that "Pap" has "two angels" around him - one good and one bad. Calhoun's direction emphasizes their co-dependence. When one Pap looks in the mirror, he sees the other. And after one takes a swig of liquor, the second wipes his own mouth.

This isn't one of those nontraditional casting projects in which you're supposed to forget the differences that exist on stage. To the contrary, the production celebrates difference and uses it to stunning advantage, in ways large and small.

One of the small ways comes at the end of Huck and Jim's rousing duet, "Muddy Water," when the actors jointly sign the song's final word, "ride," with Michael McElroy's Jim positioning his fingers on the back of Corrigan's hand. Their fate, riding a raft on the Mississippi, is unmistakably intertwined.

A large, breathtaking example occurs near the end of the show, when most of the cast is singing and signing "Waitin' for the Light to Shine." After the music has filled the theater, the final chorus is signed in total silence. By that point, communication barriers have been crossed; the audience can hear the music.

This rich production is further enhanced by designer Ray Klausen's storybook set, which consists primarily of huge, free-standing pages from the novel. Doors are cut out of pages; part of a page rises up to become the roof of Pap's shack; and Tom Sawyer's cave is a hole surrounded by a spiral of silver words on a black background.

The performers range in experience from Corrigan, an expressive 18-year-old freshman at Washington's Gallaudet University, to McElroy, a Broadway veteran with a stirring voice, re-creating his 2004 Tony-nominated role. As Twain, O'Brien - Deaf West's managing director and the actor who created the role in the original 2001 Los Angeles production - not only makes a wry narrator, he also plays guitar and brings an authentic-sounding twang to his catchy country western songs.

Country western music and the American musical are both indigenous forms, yet there are surprisingly few country musicals. As one of those few, Big River is a logical choice for America's most historic theater, Ford's. But the stunning way that this particular production illustrates inclusion makes it even more fitting - a genuinely democratic work that can and should be celebrated by the widest range of theatergoers.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Baltimore Sun

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Deaf West Theatre: A Sweet Sound for Everyone

By Darien Bates

April 6, 2005

For centuries theatre has been defined by its spoken words, seminal speeches and soliloquies like Hamlet's musing, "To be or not to be," or Willy Loman's declaring, "A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away."

Such words have moved people, invoked anger, smiles, tears, and a new recognition of the human condition. But for Ed Waterstreet, these words were never heard, lost on ears that were deaf since birth.

Growing up in a family that frequented the theater often, and the only deaf person in his family, he saw how much his family enjoyed the performances, especially musicals, but was never able to appreciate them in the same way.

This sense of missing something stayed with Waterstreet as he attended Gallaudet University , the Washington , D.C. school for the deaf, where he took part in the theater program, acting in plays, signing his lines as other hearing students would read the lines from the side of the stage.

Still, he felt that the experience didn't match up with that available to a hearing audience.

After graduating from Gallaudet, Waterstreet worked with the National Theatre of the Deaf, before moving to Los Angeles in 1991. There he discovered a large, vibrant deaf community without access to theater tailored to its specific needs.

Even when working with the National Theatre of the Deaf, Waterstreet felt a barrier existed between the deaf and hearing audience members. When he started his own theater company with his wife Linda Bove, reducing the separation between the deaf and the hearing was a top priority.

The company he founded in 1991, Deaf West Theatre, has worked hard to overcome that gap and to create innovative ways of presenting theater for the deaf.

After working for years on dramas, developing the technique to blend American Sign Language (ASL) with the spoken word, the company took on a new challenge, producing a musical.

Talking through an interpreter by phone to the News-Press, Bove said that many people's initial reaction to the idea of doing a musical was one of disbelief. She said that many couldn't imagine how actors that couldn't hear would be able to put on a production that revolved around music. Still, with the help of director Jeff Calhoun the company put on an original adaptation of Oliver, following with a production of Big River, the story of Huckleberry Finn, now part of a national tour and presently being staged at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Instead of being a hindrance to the performance, bringing together ASL and the spoken word creates new opportunities along with some unique challenges.

Bill O'Brien, the managing director and the actor portraying Mark Twain, told the News-Press that the performance gains from performing to both hearing and deaf audiences. "Something happens that can't happen without a full participation of both cultures," he said.

As Mark Twain, O'Brien serves as the speaking voice for the character of Huckleberry Finn, who is portrayed in person by deaf actor Christopher Corrigan. While Corrigan acts the part of Huckleberry Finn, O'Brien speaks the words as the character of Mark Twain, standing on the outside of the scene.

While the format has the potential to be problematic, through intense coordination and synchronization, O'Brien and Corrigan are able to make it seem like the words originate with Finn, adding the unique chance to create a single character with two actors. "The acting is happening somewhere in between them," O'Brien said.

But that also means that the two actors have to work constantly to remain unified throughout the run of the play. "He grows from one moment to the next, and I have to be completely in step," he said.

The format works particularly well in Big River because the play features Mark Twain as the narrator in the beginning, so the use of him as Finn's voice seems a natural outgrowth of the story.

"It's part ventriloquism, part hanging one's hat on a very carefully constructed translation," he said.

Creating that translation is one of the most difficult aspects of creating the performance, and Bove's favorite part of the process.

She said that most people don't realize that ASL is a language of its own, with unique vocabulary and syntax, not just a verbatim translation of spoken English. Therefore, when translating any play into ASL, one isn't simply replicating words, but actually fitting a hand-signed text into the same rhythms and styles found in the original work.

With Twain's words the challenge becomes even harder as the translation has to capture the same insightful and yet uniquely innocent wit that Twain captured like no one else.

Bove said that, like English, ASL has different levels of formality, ranging from the colloquial to the literary. In creating the language for Huckleberry Finn it was necessary to capture the lower class, streetwise characteristics of the words.

But the challenge doesn't end there. In creating a genuinely similar experience for both the hearing and the deaf, Bove said it is just as important that the audience responds in similar ways at the same time, despite the language difference. As is the case with many foreign language movies, when the subtitles don't follow the same rhythm of the spoken dialogue, a poorly constructed ASL translation causes deaf and hearing audience members to react at different times, ASL often placing the punch-line in the middle of a sentence different than spoken English, which usually places the punch at the end.

The final component of putting together the performance was creating the same feeling of music for those unable to hear.

Coy Middlebrook, associate director and choreographer for the show said that working with director Jeff Calhoun, the group focused on creating a musical rhythm to the blocking and choreography.

Even in silence, Middlebrook said that music can be created in movement as well as sound. He used the example of waves in the ocean or trees moving in the wind, as having a deeply musical sound even in silence.

By adding a certain rhythm and coordination to the movements and signing of the actors Calhoun and Middlebrook attempt to capture that same kind of music.

During the final scene as the play reaches its conclusion, the entire company performs a reprise of the song "Waiting for the Light to Shine." In the final phrase of the song, as the singers sing and sign the words, the sound suddenly ceases. In silence, the signing continues, completing the piece. In that moment of silence, of mute performance, the hearing and deaf alike experience the visual music, and in that moment there is equity.

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Potomac Stages / March 31, 2005

Something special has come to Ford's. Something more than just a bright, charming and tuneful musical - as special as that is in itself. No, the opening of a local production of the Deaf West Theatre revival of the late composer Roger Miller’s only musical, which originated in California and won a special Tony Award for its limited run on Broadway two years ago, is special because this superbly enjoyable romp added an element to the vocabulary of musical theater never used before and uses it well. Never before, with the exception of an earlier effort at Deaf West's 99 seat theater in North Hollywood, had a musical used American Sign Language as an integral element in a production. Here director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun has incorporated sign language so well, so effectively and so charmingly that it enhances the experience of those in the audience who can hear, while opening up the magic of the musical to those who can’t. Neither group is witnessing a performance designed for the other -- both groups are enjoying equal access to a performance designed for both and both benefit from a unique kind of visual music.

Storyline: Mark Twain’s tale of Huckleberry Finn is set along the Mississippi River in the days when it was the key avenue of commerce between the reach of slavery and the free states of the north. Huck embarks on a raft trip down the river with runaway slave Jim and is soon joined by a pair of charlatans who run scams among the river towns. His friendship with Jim sorely tests his acceptance of the concepts of slavery and the inferiority of one race of men as compared to another.
The original musical won the Tony Award for best new musical and for best score when it premiered in 1985. This version uses a cast of a dozen performers who speak and sing their own lines while also signing them, and a dozen who sign theirs while others speak or sing them. To help the process along, it adds the character of Mark Twain as a narrator. Deaf West's Managing Director, who originated the role of Twain in the California production, joins in a partnership with Gallaudet University freshman Christopher B. Corrigan, who plays Huck through sign language while O'Brien delivers the audible portion of the part, often from the lip of the stage or the side of the set. Michael McElroy, who earned a Tony Award nomination as the runaway slave Jim in this show on Broadway, uses his own booming voice while signing each meaning. The duets between him and Corrigan/O'Brien are exceptionally thrilling as the meaning of each moment is captured not only in audible sound but in signs which cannot be mistaken by anyone, even those with no fluency in sign language. The signing of “You see the same stars through brown eyes as I see through blue” is an unmistakable visual testament to newly discovered truth.

The work of many, including the team of American Sign Language masters headed by Linda Bove, can be cited for the special magic of this production. However, it is the work of director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun that must be singled out. Bringing a choreographer’s eye to the director’s chores has been important in many musicals over the years but perhaps never this important. Sign language, after all, is a means of communication very similar to dance, using movement to exchange information. But it is also a language that is directional -- a sign must be viewed from straight on to be fully read. On stage, you can’t have a dialogue where two signers face each other. That would give the audience just a side view of the signs which would be meaningless from that angle. On the other hand, you can’t really get away with two people supposedly signing to each other who aren’t signing in each other’s direction. What to do? Choreograph it like a dance! This is the skill that Calhoun brings to the equation and his work makes the show something special indeed.

The show has always been a crowd pleaser and this production is no exception. A brightly colorful design uses the pages of Twain’s book as set pieces. On Broadway, the costumes were just right for period and character, including a tremendously entertaining pair of duplicate costumes for the two actors playing Huck’s Pap - one signing and one voicing. Here the costume design goes strangely uncredited and the costumes seem somewhat less colorful and impressive. The set, on the other hand, is just as effective, perhaps because the company is actually using the set pieces from the Broadway run on the stage at Fords. Michael Gilliam's warm lighting effects add to the brightness of the entire production. Also impressive is the work of sound designer Peter Fitzgerald who manages to fill the hall with a natural sound to accompany the visual magic taking place on stage.

Written by William Hauptman based on the novel by Mark Twain. Music and lyrics by Roger Miller. Directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun. Musical direction and special musical arrangements by Steven Landau. Design: Ray Klausen (set) Carol F. Doran (hair and wigs) Michael Gilliam (lights) Peter Fitzgerald (sound) T. Charles Erickson (photography) Dana DePaul (stage manager). Cast: Stanley Bahorek, Michelle A. Banks, Jeannette Bayardelle, Christopher Block, Linda Bove, Debra Buonaccorsi, Walter Charles, William Conley, Christopher B. Corrigan, Christopher Michael Desouza, Desiré Dubose, Elizabeth Green, Dan Manning, Michael McElroy, David McLellan, Bill O'Brien, Andres Otalora, David Michael Roth, Ben Thompson, Charles E. Wallace.

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'Big River' gets Ford's season rolling

By Joan Blanchard
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 26, 2005

The film of mediocrity that settled over Ford's Theatre of late has been lifted with a jubilant production of the musical "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" conceived by Deaf West Theatre. The fluid staging and catchy country-Western score are elevated by a combination of hearing, deaf and hard-of-hearing actors, who create a compelling "third language" composed of speech and American Sign Language.

The emphasis on swift movement works marvelously in a show taking place on the Mississippi River, a body of water that means freedom for some of Mark Twain's characters but death, escape or enslavement to others.

As directed by Jeff Calhoun, this lower-tech staging of "Big River" lacks the thrilling special effects of the Broadway production -- which reproduced Huck Finn's raft in the water, right down to every bump and curve of the current -- but it makes up for that with expressive high spirits.

The audience is asked to use its imagination in Ford's production, which features a multilevel wood set decked out in oversize pages from Twain's novel. The author himself takes center stage, serving not only as the narrator, but also as the voice of Huck Finn, portrayed by deaf actor Christopher B. Corrigan, a Gallaudet University student.

Bill O'Brien plays the noted wit and character without slipping into parody, giving the impression that he has such fondness for Huck Finn that he cannot resist supplying the voice.

"Big River" details Huck's escape from his hometown, St. Petersburg, Mo., as he chafes under the loving discipline of Widow Douglas (Elizabeth Greene) and Miss Watson (Linda Bove, with her voice provided by Catherine Brunell). He has far more dire reasons for leaving town, as his drunken and violent Pap (Darren Frazier and Jay Lusteck) is anxious to get his paws on the money found by Huck and his friend Tom Sawyer (Stanley Bahorek) in Injun Joe's cave.

Huck heads to the river with runaway slave Jim (the Tony-nominated Michael McElroy), who would rather risk capture than be sold to another owner in New Orleans. Huck wrestles with his conscience and his newfound abolitionist stance, proclaiming with boyish naivete that "Jim has the same love for his wife and children that white folks do."

If it has been a while since you have read "Huckleberry Finn," what strikes you about the novel -- and the musical -- is how adult it is. Huck and Jim have lovely adventures on the river, but Huck also has to deal with an abusive father, abandonment, people wanting him around only for his money, racism and exploitation of the young. There also is a heap of lying, scheming, drinking and dying in this novel for youth.

"Big River" handles all these big issues with a sense of expansiveness and acceptance. Life is hard -- that's a given -- but there are moments of transcendence and joy. The musical has its share of lively numbers, set to the honky-tonk rhythms of Roger Miller's score, but considerable beauty can be found in the quieter intervals.

You can feel the camaraderie and awe in the hush when Jim and Huck lie on their backs on the raft, looking up at the stars during the melancholy song "River in the Rain." A gospel strain runs through stirring songs "The Crossing" and "How Blest We Are," as the various slaves encounter separation and suffering.

The interaction between the hearing and deaf actors is seamless, with the cast creating a symbiotic relationship between sign language and speech that is mesmerizing. After a while, you sort of forget who has what faculties, a development underscored by a brilliant moment in the song "Waiting for the Light to Shine" when the final chorus is performed solely in sign language.

Mr. Corrigan makes an irascible and impressionable Huck, but he is nearly outshone by the crowing love of high jinks expressed by Mr. Bahorek's Tom Sawyer.

As Jim, Mr. McElroy creates a finely etched portrait of a man consumed by both freedom and duty. Jay Lusteck and David McLellan have a boisterous good time playing the flimflam men King and Andy. In a play seemingly overpopulated with boys and men, Catherine Brunell strikes a grace note as Mary Jane Wilkes, the kind young woman who steals Huck's heart.

The 2004-05 season at Ford's has been well-meaning but plodding. That current has been reversed with this big-hearted and boisterous "Big River." ***

WHAT: "Big River," music and lyrics by Roger Miller, book by William Hauptman
WHERE: Ford's Theatre, 511 10th St. NW
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 12 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. Through May 1.
TICKETS: $25 to $48
PHONE: 202/347-4833
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS

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'Big River': Music to The Ears And Eyes

By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 25, 2005; Page C01

Even if you speak only one language when you step into Ford's Theatre these days, you'll come out well versed in two.

Your new second language is American Sign, which is employed with a touching panache in Deaf West Theatre's inspiring reinvention of "Big River," the folksy musical adaptation of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." The show, performed by a cast of hearing and deaf actors whose styles are imaginatively blended by director Jeff Calhoun, is ideal for parents in search of an enriching night out with the kids. And there's the added appeal of providing audiences with a feel for the poetic physicality of a form of communication that some may view only as the outgrowth of a handicap.

"Big River" is not a great musical, but it's an altogether decent one, with some ebullient songs by Roger Miller, composer of the '60s pop standard "King of the Road." Some of the ingredients are poured in unevenly. Mark Twain's piquant humor is not always apparent in William Hauptman's script, and all that gleaming Heartland innocence does become a tad tiresome. Some of the strain might have been alleviated by judicious cuts in a production that runs 2 hours and 40 minutes. Dialogue-heavy scenes, especially a second-act sequence involving the scamming of a bereaved family, cry out for trimming.

Still, Miller's music saves the day. Invigorated by indigenous forms like bluegrass and spirituals, the score brims with milk-fed American vitality. Songs such as "Muddy Water," "Free at Last" and "How Blest We Are" shimmer and soar at Ford's, where, for once, the amplification is just right. The singers, most notably Jeannette Bayardelle, Bill O'Brien and the majestically talented Michael McElroy, the last playing runaway slave Jim, infuse the numbers with a powerful sense of soul.

The evening's chief fascination, though, is its breakthrough technique, the way the narrative for those who can hear exists in tandem with one for those who cannot. Having premiered on Broadway 20 years ago in a more conventional production, the musical is now a showcase for magically malleable storytelling. (Deaf West, based in Los Angeles, unveiled this version in 2001, and the troupe has toured it on and off ever since.) Given Twain's own abundant gifts as showman and raconteur, it seems more than fitting to use one of his classics to blaze new narrative trails.

To watch, for instance, as a young hearing-impaired actor, Andres Otalora, translates the song "Arkansas" into crisply expressive bursts of gesture is to discover that there is music to be mined in the silences between the words.

Calhoun's "Big River" divvies up the parts in a spirit of cooperation. You are constantly being shown the manner in which two disparate worlds can be made one. For instance, McElroy, a hearing actor, plays his scenes on the raft with a deaf Huck (Christopher B. Corrigan, a student at Gallaudet University). While McElroy signs and sings his role, Huck's vocals are supplied by O'Brien, who also plays Twain, perched onstage as the omniscient, banjo-plucking narrator.

On Ray Klausen's multilevel set, whimsically adorned with blown-up pages from the novel, this type of pairing occurs throughout the evening. The show even devises its own notion of role-sharing. Huck's snarling hillbilly father, Pap, is played simultaneously by identically costumed actors, one hearing (Jay Lusteck) and one nonhearing (Darren Frazier), who collaborate nicely on Pap's Twainian, contrarian rant, "Guv'ment." The two actors are paired again later to good effect as the riverside con men Duke (Frazier) and King (Lusteck).

Calhoun is also credited as choreographer, but most of the synchronized movement occurs above the waist. When the ensemble signs during "Do You Wanna Go to Heaven," unison takes on a whole new depth of feeling. This idea reaches its apotheosis in the company reprise of "Waitin' for the Light to Shine." Halfway through the number, the seven-piece band suddenly stops playing, and the actors continue to sign the song in utter silence. In this brief, breath-stopping interlude, you suddenly find yourself able to listen to dancing fingers.

Competing with speaking actors for an audience's attention, the deaf performers have the toughest challenge. An audience may feel for a time that Corrigan's Huck is a distant figure, particularly because he has to share the stage with McElroy's dynamic and moving Jim. But Corrigan's presence and performance grow as the evening progresses. By the curtain call he's managed to create a distinct Huck, one who absorbs the lessons Twain imparts here, about seeing past superficial differences and understanding something new about the universal human quest for respect and dignity.

Which, of course, Calhoun's "Big River" doubly reinforces. Catherine Brunell and Stanley Bahorek deserve mention here too as a girl who stirs new feelings in Huck, and Twain's legendary rascal, Tom Sawyer.

But the real standout is the idea that theater still has the power to lead by imaginative will, that communities cut off from each other can be shown how to sing with one voice and a flurry of hands.

Big River, music and lyrics by Roger Miller, book by William Hauptman. Directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun. Set, Ray Klausen; lighting, Michael Gilliam; sound, Peter Fitzgerald; costume coordinator, Lynn Bowling; musical director, Nick DeGregorio. With Walter Charles, Linda Bove, Elizabeth Greene, Christopher Bloch, Michelle A. Banks. Approximately 2 hours 40 minutes. Through May 1 at Ford's Theatre, 511 10th St. NW. Call 202-347-4833 or visit www.fordstheatre.org.

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Singing and signing in 'Big River'

Deaf West's production opens at Ford's

By Kim Hart
Sun Staff
March 24, 2005

When Michael McElroy auditioned for the role of Jim in Deaf West Theatre's production of Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he thought he'd be using American Sign Language only during the songs. He soon realized he would be signing -- as well as reciting -- his many lines. At that point, McElroy, who had never before used sign language, began to panic.

For the next week, he entered "sign boot camp," spending at least three hours a day with an interpreter to learn the signs for every word in the script.

"I still don't know how I did it," said McElroy, who is now almost fluent in ASL and last year received a Tony nomination for his role in the play's extended run on Broadway. "When you feel the magic and how special an experience is, you just learn it."

Four years after the innovative musical's inception by Deaf West Theatre -- a Hollywood-based professional sign language theater specializing in creating cultural programs for the deaf and hard of hearing -- Big River has come to Ford's Theatre in Washington. Nine of the 23 cast members are deaf or hard of hearing, and the actors synchronize voice and song with sign language gestures to perform for an audience of all hearing capabilities.

A musical for the deaf may be difficult to envision. Speaking actors both sign and speak their lines, and deaf actors sign and gesture while another actor provides the voice for the role. Coordinating the parts can be a challenge, especially for actors who are signing to music they may not be able to hear.

But the performance allows the hard-of-hearing members of the audience to see a story unfold in their own language and "melts away barriers for the hearing audience who get engaged with a play they didn't realize could be engaging," said Bill O'Brien, Deaf West managing director and producer.

"It sounds complicated, but you really just fall into it," said O'Brien, who plays Mark Twain and provides the voice of Huck. "The play is actually more clearly communicated with the combination of nonverbal with verbal communication."

Christopher Corrigan, an 18-year-old freshman at Gallaudet University, portrays Huck and relies on gestures and facial expressions to convey emotion. He saw the production on Broadway two years ago and vowed to someday be part of it. For him, the musical's greatest goal is to reveal the value in merging the two cultures to promote mutual understanding.

"Practically half the cast had never met a deaf person before working on this show," Corrigan said through an interpreter. "What's important is that both forms of the language are equal in their beauty and theatrical expression."

The themes of Big River -- adapted from Mark Twain's classic novel -- of breaking through stereotypes and embracing commonalities rather than differences make the story an appropriate choice for this type of production.

"The thing that happens onstage between Huck and Jim is the same that happens between the actors and the audience," McElroy said. "This is really what theater is all about. It educates, changes your perspective so that you're somehow different when you leave."

Deaf West Theatre's production of "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" runs at Ford's Theatre, 511 10th St. N.W, Washington, through May 1. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Noon matinees will show March 31 and April 7, 13, 20, 21, 27, 28. Call 202-347-4833 or visit www.fords theatre.org.

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Crossing A Great Divide

"Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
Through May 1 800-551-7328 Ford's Theatre (TTY: 202-347-5599)
By Lisa Traiger Special to The Washington Post
Friday, March 18, 2005; Page WE29

MICHAEL McElroy and Christopher B. Corrigan had just sung "Muddy Water," a rousing, showstopping number from "Big River," Roger Miller's twangy and soulful adaptation of the great Mark Twain classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." They were nearly halfway through a two-week rehearsal period for the 1985 Tony Award winner for best musical, which Ford's Theatre is producing in alliance with Los Angeles-based Deaf West Theatre.

The cold, cluttered church-gym-cum-rehearsal-hall erupted with applause. For some members of the cast and crew, this meant clapping; for others, it meant raising hands above heads and wiggling fingers. Whatever their methods, however, all shared in the enthusiasm for McElroy (who plays runaway slave Jim) and Corrigan (his sharp-as-a-tack pal Huck). The pair took a moment to drink in the attention before getting back to the nitty-gritty details of perfecting soundless cues and unspoken dialogue.

A freshman at Washington's Gallaudet University, Corrigan, with his easygoing smile and unruly mop of chestnut hair, was pleased to see Jeff Calhoun's waving hand, a sure sign that his performance had pleased the director. Still, he heard none of the whoops and clapping. Corrigan is deaf.

When Deaf West's simultaneously spoken and signed revival of "Big River" arrived on Broadway in 2003, it served as a defining moment for deaf performers and audiences alike. The last time a Broadway show specifically integrated American Sign Language and a story with a deaf point of view was in 1980, when Mark Medoff's "Children of a Lesser God" drew back the curtain for audiences unfamiliar with the richness of deaf culture. Corrigan was not even born then.

A recent graduate of Frederick's Maryland School for the Deaf, Corrigan was smitten when he saw "Big River" on Broadway. Now, just 18 and making his professional debut, he's the youngest in a mixed hearing and deaf cast, nearly half of whom are affiliated with Gallaudet in Northeast Washington. He spoke through a sign language interpreter, Elizabeth Green, who is featured in the cast as Widow Douglas and serves as the production's sign captain, charged with ensuring that all ASL exchanges are accurate and reflective of the characters speaking. Corrigan said: "That was the first time I saw how beautiful theater can be for deaf people, from a deaf person's perspective. It was extraordinary. I've seen many, many plays. . . . I go to theater all the time. But this was the first time I felt that a play speaks to me and I don't have to watch an interpreter."

That's the point, chimed in Deaf West's managing director, Bill O'Brien, who plays Mark Twain and serves as the spoken voice of Huck in the production. "At Deaf West, every time we pick a show," he noted, "we make sure that . . . we can enhance [it] in some way or bring something to it that fits the spine of the story." The last thing he wants is for sign language to become a gimmick, or worse, an afterthought.

McElroy, who received a Tony nomination for his performance as Jim in the Broadway revival, went through what he called "sign language boot camp" to prepare for his role, which is both fully spoken and sung and fully signed, using appropriate regionalisms and 19th-century gestures that those fluent in ASL will recognize as archaic today. Of that arduous, six-day ASL cram session, McElroy said he would go through it all again: "For the actors, it's great to have another way of conveying thought and feeling. . . . What interested me about this piece is that Jim was a slave who signs. It becomes another level that the show addresses, with hearing and deaf actors onstage telling the story."

O'Brien concurred, noting, "It's already a story about reaching across cultural boundaries. . . . Throughout the course of the play, Huck and Jim find ways to reach across a divide and really find a common humanity."

This "Big River," he said, both widens the divide and lengthens the bridge over it. "We felt that that gap was not only black and white, but it's hearing and deaf. If things are working like we hope they will, what happens between Huck and Jim happens between hearing audience members and the deaf audience."

For his part, McElroy couldn't ask for a more fulfilling experience. "This is why I got into [theater] in the first place: It does what art is supposed to do. It entertains you. It educates you. It tells you something you didn't know in a way that's creative, fun and funny, yet touching. It has all the things that made us become actors."

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Fine Arts - Sign of the times - Michael McElroy

13 Mar'05
By Emily Cary

When Michael McElroy was first cast as Jim in the Broadway production of Deaf West Theatre's "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," he had never communicated in sign language.

After six days of concentrated study with sign masters, he was ready to begin rehearsals for a show that took New York by storm and earned him a Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical, and a Drama Desk nomination for outstanding actor in a musical on Broadway.

Now he repeats his starring role in the Washington debut of "Big River," together with Christopher B. Corrigan of Gallaudet University as Huck, and a cast of deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing actors. This innovative musical that topples barriers and opens unique theatrical opportunities is a fitting grand finale for a Ford's Theatre season devoted to celebrating great American writers.

"I love this show because it's fulfilling on so many different levels," McElroy says. "The use of ASL [American Sign Language] deepens the story, makes it richer and gives a positive message of what people can do. Being exposed to a different world and telling the story with song in both English and sign language has been an incredible experience.

"It was great to do it in New York, my home, and hear the strong reactions by the actors in the audience. They would come up to me afterward and say, 'This is why I became an actor, to experience a show that is life-changing and still entertaining.' Even though Broadway is driven by financial and other considerations, there should always be a space for this kind of experimental theater."

A new experience

The production was developed, directed and choreographed by Tony Award nominee Jeff Calhoun, who envisioned a new theatrical experience for the deaf, a vast improvement over the standard means of communication by a signer standing to the side of the stage. This show allows all audience members to appreciate everything happening on stage. The hearing experience action, music and dialogue, while the deaf can better focus directly on the performers.

Giving back

McElroy, 37, wasted no time moving to New York after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. He arrived there in 1990 at the height of the AIDS epidemic and immediately offered his musical training for the cause by forming Broadway Inspirational Voices (BIV), a chorus of gospel singers.

"I grew up singing in the choir in my grandfather's church, Harvest Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland," he says. "My mother, brother, sister and uncle all sang gospel music together for years. It's a powerful means of communication and hearing it is a healing experience, so it was only natural that I chose it for my chorus. The response to our first concert was tremendous.

"Our music crosses all boundaries. With my partners, I wrote six songs for a new CD that 30 of our singers made with The Century Men, a 100-voice choir of music directors from the South, and at present I'm working on an Easter cantata. I enjoy directing the chorus, and in this business where shows open and close at random, you can have down time, so it's important to keep creative. The choir allows me to do that."

As proof that the creative juices are rolling, "Great Joy," the BIV holiday CD, garnered a Grammy nomination this year for Best Instrumental with Vocal. McElroy's acting career is equally productive: Even before graduating from college, he was cast in the New York Shakespeare Festival's "Richard III" with Denzel Washington. A national tour of "Sarafina" was followed by "Miss Saigon" on Broadway and subsequent roles in "The Who's Tommy" and "Rent." Off-Broadway shows include "Violet," which earned him the 1997 Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role, and "Blue," performed also at Pasadena Playhouse where he received an L.A. Ovation nomination.

'Big River's' message

His Tony nomination for "Big River" was just icing on the cake. "All those nominations were a great honor, something I'd dreamed about all my life," he says.

McElroy wants the Washington audiences to remember the message of "Big River" long after they leave.

"We are so into our own world, we don't see the outside world," he says. "This story is about the friendship of a young white kid from outside society and a black slave who understands very well how society operates. One is hearing, the other is deaf. Despite their differences, they form a bond based on trust and respect. The lesson we must remember is that people are far more alike than they believe, a lesson that should apply to people the world over."

"Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" begins March 18 and runs through May 1 at Ford's Theatre, Washington. Tickets are $25 to $48. Call 202 347-4833 or 800-551-7328, or visit www.fordstheatre.org for details.

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