Deaf Theater: Feel the performance "Murder Me Always" at ICODA

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Deaf theater: Feel the performance

BY J. OKRAY
APRIL 14, 2010

© J. Okray 2010/MEDILL

Deafness psychologist Patricia Scherer, is the founder and director of the International Center on Deafness & the Arts in Northbrook.

Hands communicate wildly as actors rush in and out of scenes, their facial and body expressions bringing characters to life - without anyone uttering a word.

This is a performance by those who cannot hear, cannot speak, but can animate a theatrical production.  Burried within the audience, other actors voclaize the lines of the play so those who are able to hear can follow along.

  

Twice a year, the CenterLight Theatre (part of  The International Center on Deafness & the Arts) hosts productions performed by deaf children. The children portray their parts by signing and acting while the actors in the audience provide the voiceovers.

"We used to have full productions and pay the actors," said Patricia Scherer, founder and director of ICODA in Northbrook. But economic challenges have left the center short of funds, she said.

A group of adult actors pulled together to volunteer two months of weekends to produce the most recent play Murder Me Always. The money raised from ticket sales and snacks will support a children's production of Snow White this summer.

"I have had the best time in my life performing for ICODA," said volunteer actor Tom Adamo, 48, of Chicago. "I am proud deaf," he said, adding he has worked with ICODA since 1991 and performed in many plays. "I enjoy entertaining the audience mostly in comedy as it gives them a medication of relaxation and joyfulness."

ICODA offers a unique opportunity for hearing impaired children to experience the arts in an unconventional way.

"The [deaf] kids had nothing for arts programs like music and theatre," said Scherer. "They are all taught art only visually."

Scherer also teaches deaf children about music through strategies such as speakers under the stage that are set to high volume so the kids feel the vibrations in the floor and dance to the rhythm. She uses colored lights to change and flicker with the music and says it is amazing to watch little children dance in unison to the music they cannot hear.

Programs incorporating music and theater are important to deaf children and adults because it offers them an outlet for personal expression. Preliminary research shows that access to such programs can spur kids in particular to advance in education and careers, Scherer said. An informal survey shows her how many of the center's students graduate from college compared to the national average of 5 percent of the deaf population graduating from college, according to Scherer. "A lot more research is still needed though," she said.

Scherer founded ICODA in 1973 with about 10 students participating in extra-curricular programs. The center also offered training for teachers. Since then, over 20,000 people of all ages have received direct services from the many facets of the organization. They include the CenterLight Theatre, Traveling Hands Troupe, Story in Sign, Teacher Training Program, ICODA Dance, Museum on Deafness, Early Intervention and International Creative Arts Camp.

For the future, Scherer is raising funding to buy a 400,000 square-foot warehouse to be renovated into a state-of-the-art facility, fully equipped for the deaf. The center would have a 500-seat theatre, a treatment and intervention lab dedicated to education about the deaf and possible technological aids including the Cochlear implant, and helping deaf children with behavioral conditions. It will also have training centers with distance learning capabilities so teachers and children elsewhere can participate in the programs.

  

"We feel ethically obligated to share this information," said Scherer. "The goal is to spread it to service people everywhere."For more information about ICODA, the upcoming production of Snow White or to help ICODA raise funding, visit their Web site: www.icodaarts.com.