Photos by Rebecca J Michelson @rebeccajmichelson
Deaf Playwrights Joey Caverly & Andrew Morrill’s play TRASH hits the stage in a historical first, thanks to Artistic Director Bill Rauch and Producing Partner Liz Flemming, Out of the Box Theatrics production at The Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC). Given a three week run in March this Deaf led gem is sold out, proving to the writers there is indeed a platform and audience for their work. The pipeline from page to stage for TRASH according to Bill Rauch, embodies the PAC’s mission statement ‘Every Story Has a Stage Here’ this time in American Sign Language (ASL). Written and performed by Deaf artists and the inclusion of the Deaf community in every performance. A first for Off Broadway or Broadway.
Bill Rauch shared his backstory with DOWNTOWN that his brother is Deaf and also has cerebral palsy, who grew up oral, in a time when sign language learning was not prescribed. His brother would later graduate from Gallaudet University and learn ASL. Rauch in his storied Artistic Director career has brought ASL and the Deaf community into inclusive settings he Cofounded at the Cornerstone Theater in Los Angeles spotlighting Deaf Actor CJ Jones (Avatar, Wright’s Baby Driver). As Artistic Director of Oregon’s Shakespeare Festival brought to stage Deaf Actors Howie Seago and Monique Holt. Now he’s mounted Deaf Playwrights Joey Caverly’s & Andrew Morrill’s TRASH production as the inaugural Artistic Director of Perlman Arts Center in Downtown New York City.
It is an unprecedented first for a play with Deaf writers to stage and perform their own play in ASL on a major stage in NYC. When Rauch was invited by Fleming to see TRASH at Out of the Box Theatrics, he knew instantly that it had a perfect home at the PAC. “I laughed, I cried too, partly of the indignities I knew to be true from living, and later working with Deaf artists. Caverly & Morrill are brilliant artists at the top of their game.”
Big Writers Joey Caverly and Andrew Morrill shared they intentionally center on the relatable experiences of two roommates arguing over who’ll take out the trash. The production is visual from the onset as the leads Caverly & Morrill are Deaf and communicate in American Sign Language (ASL). TRASH is the first play, historically to be staged predominantly in ASL in a story written by Deaf playwrights, who are also actors, and get to perform their own work on a major NYC performing arts stage or theater. “A counter perspective offered is what it means to be deaf, similar to the odd couple, where this story may not be autobiographical in that sense, but the feeling is one Deaf audiences experience and can identify with.”
Tim and Jake are Deaf roommates sharing an apartment in the city- but not much else. They’re polar opposites, each with very different views on what it means to be Deaf in a hearing world. When it comes to taking out the trash, they spiral into a comic and insightful examination of their personal garbage and their perceptions of each other’s lives.
Producer Liz Flemming told DOWNTOWN the deal struck with the PAC offered by Rauch was more than equitable. Out of the Box Theatrics would serve as the Creative Producer of the production and the PAC assumed the front of house operations, union contracts and advertising. Her backstory with TRASH, began with Joey Caverly, who was the Director of ASL in the Off Broadway musical Baby which she starred opposite Deaf actor Johnny Link. Their bond was invaluable to her as she has low vision, experiencing difficulty in learning ASL on Zoom during Covid. He shared his script with her for feedback and Liz offered to workshop the production. Offers came in and once she met Bill all talks led to the PAC.
Liz found the perfect partner in Noah Eisenberg who came on as Associate Producer, serving as the lead company, OOTBT funded five Deaf Creative & Production positions. Hiring Broadway’s Amelia Hensley as Associate Director, Kailyn Aaron-Lozano, Director of Artistic Sign Language, Annie Weigand, a professional Lightning Designer, and Nicola Sereda, a Gallaudet Student Costume Designer, with Jonathan Meich as Production Assistant. Understudy for Tim & Jake is also Deaf is Noah Buccholz. Both Stage Management and Director of (19) ASL Interpreters was deftly executed by Miriam Rochford.
Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad with Creative Design team Suzu Sakai (Scenic Designer), Howard Ho (Sound Design), Taylor Edelle Stuart (Projection Designer), Ellie Hart Brown (Props Designer), Kimi Handa Brown (Intimacy & Fight Director), Emily Duncan (Production Manager).
Rounding out the stellar cast is Vishal Vaidya as the landlord and also signs, had appeared with Joey Caverly in his Helen Hayes Musical Best Musical Actor role in The Music Man. Rebecca Spigleman, takes the comical lead as Jake’s sexually boisterous obsession (a Sign Language Center student). The cast understudies are Trey Harrington and Jessica Ranville.
TRASH employs surprising theatrical devices that allow all audiences to understand the play (and each other) in profoundly new ways. The personification of an antiquated juke box by Chris Ogren, who comes alive to voice the ensuing feud over household duties is both clever and comical. He doesn’t operate for free yet willingly for a fee, as the dollars are handed over or stuffed in pockets, signifying cash paid over in order to be understood.
Accessibility to language is at the forefront from the moment this writer who is Deaf and signs entered the PAC. The Front of the House staff signed phrases of greetings in ASL, as did the Box Office, the elevator operators and ushers. All signed or held white boards when appropriate with info printed and visible to theater patrons. How did this come about? The PAC’s Paul Behrhorst, Accessibility Manager is a former ASL student from New City’s Sign Language Center(SLC) an ASL certified language school with Deaf instructors. Behrhorst, a huge credit to the PAC, contracted with SLC a four week Deaf Culture and Language Workshop taught by Deaf Instructors. Broadway’s Treshelle Edmond and Chaya Seltzer led the ASL training sessions for the PAC’s staff with Mara Stephens as a voice interpreter to bridge the language gap.
Both Andrew and Joey credit the initial theatres in 2021 at the JACK Radical Arts Festival in Brooklyn where the duo began flipping the table on hearing audiences. What does it mean to be radical with TRASH? So we experimented, utilizing theatrical devices, like using a whiteboard, using voting cards and things of that nature to make it a little bit more interactive. The feedback was great, it wasn’t a traditional theater approach that we were using with audiences. Later in 2022 through an IRT Theater Workshop commission they got to flush out characters and story lines. JACK invited TRASH back as part of a presentation piece. They were able to skip the 29 hour read, with the offer in 2024 for a Developmental Staged Production directed by Jules Dameron at Gallaudet University where they got to see their work and adjust as playwrights.
Both Caverly and Morrill stated “It’s an honor and it’s humbling to be able to join the different ranks of Deaf playwrights who have tried and tried and trailblazed so that we can make it here. It’s not an easy feat to get our story to this platform, or to be able to get this much traction and be able to make it to this caliber with so much community support. We’re proud TRASH was able to make it to the level that it is today and be featured at the Perlman Arts Center in New York City, of all places. It’s just a stunning venue. The partnership with Out of the Box has been really rewarding, fulfilling, and an honor. I’m excited to be able to show the world our work.”
Up next for the playwrights? They’ve been commissioned by The Shed’s Open Call to present Thank You Ryan for a Clean Microwave in June. More cleaning, more comedy for sure. Together they’ve founded a company called Go Ahead, Caverly shared “serving as an incubator of sorts, for new works, for playwrights who are trying to get somewhere. We established it last year, and we’ve been really pushing the envelope to bring in Deaf stories that can be told on stage.”
Morill added, “Deaf stories deserve to be told on every platform. You don’t have to be Deaf or know ASL. You still are able to relate to stories written by Deaf people in some way, shape, or form, because we are focusing on the human experience. The concept presented in TRASH is something that’s very human. Everyone has gone through it one time or another, regardless of whether or not they know sign language or not.”
On accessibility in the Arts, Caverly shared his viewpoint on the current budget cuts in the arts and defunding. “So I would like to say, for the overall artist organizations, there are artists that are struggling, regardless of their intersection, but the way that it has impacted the disability community is tenfold. We’ve been deprioritized, due to the cost of being able to put on these works or hire Deaf artists. We are grateful to the incredible support we have had in this production, our audiences. Without them our work as creatives is not possible.”
Morill added “Accessibility should be a forethought and not an afterthought. If we start from day one, building a line in the budget, that would resolve 500 problems that you might typically encounter throughout the process, hiring disabled artists, and not just deaf artists, but disabled artists as a whole. Attitudes need to change. Americans are seeing accessibility as something that’s not ingrained in the process and we need to shift that focus. We really need to embed it in production development. Once we do that, we will reach a place where hiring artists with disabilities is not even a thought.” DTM