Rocky Mountain Deaf Theatre’s (RMDT) Production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest will present the play with an exciting new perspective. Dale Wasserman's play, adapted from Ken Kesey's novel, paints a vision where the lost souls of patients of a mental institution manage to feel human when they are befriended by a rebellious new patient named McMurphy. In RMDT’s play, the patients will be from Deaf culture and the staff will be hearing, highlighting a real-life culture clash experienced by deaf people around the globe.
Our production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest will require lots of special work. Hearing actors who don't know sign language will work together with deaf actors, so we will host workshops to help both groups of actors understand each others’ cultures and become comfortable working together. We have two directors; one hearing, one deaf working together to make sure the play is enjoyable for everyone who comes to see it. We also have two people working together to translate the script into ASL. They will ensure that the sign language will be beautiful and still match all the nuances of the script. We want to touch as many people as possible with the production, so we will tour to 3-4 different cities in Northern Colorado!
As a newer theatre company, our past productions have been smaller, low-budget plays. This play is going to be our big debut to get our theatre company on the map. We want Rocky Mountain Deaf Theatre to grow into a staple theatre of our region like the popular National Theatre of the Deaf in Connecticut, and Deaf West Theatre in California. We have budgeted for: theater rentals, actor salaries (16), lumber, director salary, lighting designer, stage manager, advertising, props, space rental for auditions, postage, cartage, printing, fight director, photographer, paint, set construction labor, Colorado Theatre Guild and affiliate, and incidentals… $12,300.
We humbly ask you to support us with your donation. Thank you for your consideration, your time, and we hope to see you out there!
Risks and challenges
The idea of having our play depict two cultures struggling to communicate with each other comes with the risk of the hearing members of the audience not being able to understand the patients and their “deaf world,” and the risk of the deaf members of the audience not being able to understand the staff and their “hearing world.” Our directing team has already discussed the play line by line to address this issue. The result is going to be a never-before-seen mix of communication strategies that will keep the audience engaged, and leave them thinking about the deeper questions raised by the play for a long time to come.
To find more information about the company and the play, click on this link: http://www.kickstarter.com/
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