WEST CORNWALL – “Clap once!” a counselor said. There was a smattering of claps.
“Clap twice!” the counselor said. This time the claps from 16 youngsters were louder and more synchronized. The counselor at the Grumbling Gryphons 2022 Theater Arts Camp had their attention.
Leslie Elias, artistic director and co-founder of the children’s theater group, immediately began engaging the campers, directing a rehearsal of “The Myth of Persephone,” Elias’ original musical dramatization of the Greek myth of the origins of the four seasons.
Co-founded with Vanessa Roe and Nicholas Jacobs, Grumbling Gryphons has been presenting “Persephone” and other original plays for 42 years.
But this year’s production, set for Friday and Saturday, will have a new twist: in addition to vocal acting and singing, it will be glossed in American Sign Language.
“I had always been interested in American Sign Language,” Elias said. “Years ago, I studied at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y. I took a five-day intensive in cinematic sign language. Over the years, I have used a little bit of sign language in our various plays but never thoroughly.”
She applied for and received an ARTE-accessible grant, designed to “provide greater access to the arts by all persons with or without disabilities and to all individuals regardless of language,” according to www.ct.gov.
Elias contacted Northwestern Connecticut Community College, which since 1973 has had a deaf studies program. Maureen Chalmers, a communication and instructional specialist in the program, agreed to work with Elias on the project.
“We sing in English, but we sign in ASL word order,” Chalmers said. “For (song lyrics), ‘In autumn we pick the fruit,’ we say, ‘autumn fruit pick.’ You have to have the fruit there before you pick it.”
She said the campers are enthusiastic and quick learners. By the second day of camp, they already knew four songs, she said.
It was Chalmers’ idea to contact Robert DeMayo, a deaf actor and longtime member of the National Theatre of the Deaf, to gloss, or interpret, the play.
“He was a principal character in, ‘See What I’m Saying,’ which is a documentary about how difficult it is for deaf people to get into theater and be taken seriously,” Chalmers said.
Elias said that if DeMayo is unable to perform, due to recent health problems, their 12-year-old camper Peter Parizksky will voice-act the role of Zeus, but without signing.
<!– hearst/home/mostPopular.tpl …….