Disability Pride Month: Highlighting LA’s Deaf West Theatre

By: Pamela Gliatis

Disability Pride Month is celebrated every year in July. The first official celebration of Disability Pride Month occurred in July 2015, which also marked the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.

As a fine example of working with Americans with disabilities, Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles, California is committed to creating an artistic bridge between the deaf and hearing worlds. At Deaf West, deaf and hearing actors perform on stage using a mix of American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken language. As a result, this opens up a new cultural world that exposes hearing patrons to the deaf culture while providing professional opportunities for deaf patrons and actors. To further awareness about the deaf culture, it is important to note that deaf people are divided into two groups: people who know ASL and people who don’t. On the stage of Deaf West, they have talent from opposing sides, deaf actors and hearing actors who are new to deaf culture, which accommodates all the spectrums of deaf and hearing patrons.

As a deaf person myself, who does not know ASL and uses a hearing device to rely on communication, Deaf West is something that would make me feel very included within the community. Another thing that is beautiful to me about the Deaf West community is the fact that once you see a play there, for two hours in the dark, we all become one. CODA is one of my favorite movies, as I felt that movie shined a light on the deaf culture and spread more awareness about the difficulties of being deaf in this world. The movie has recently become an opportunity for Deaf West to bring the story full circle back to the members of the deaf community, as it is currently being developed into a stage musical. They are hoping to stage an initial production of CODA within two years. 

However, the process of bringing a Deaf West production to life takes a bit longer than developing a traditional show for the stage, as they want to be sure that it is as authentic and groundbreaking as possible with the right group of people. In 2021-2022, Oedipus, a Greek tragedy, played out on stage using only ASL and choreography with no subtitles. Based on Greek mythology, Oedipus was a mythical king of Thebes. As a tragic hero, he fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, which then brought disaster to the whole family and city. From the many reviews of this play, it was evident that dialogue wasn’t needed to understand what was going on. Every narration and thematic move was done through ASL, which was like an interpretative dance, poetry through movement rather than spoken word. Various videos on YouTube show clips of this play, demonstrating how the actors performed intense movements through ASL. Sorrow was evoked through the entire bodies of the actors, relaying the grief better than speech ever could. 

For 2024, Deaf West's most recent production back in March was an opera, Beethoven’s Fidelio. This production was done in collaboration with conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who conducts the LA Phil. It is a story told through the composer’s music sung by hearing vocalists alongside deaf actors using ASL as a form of gestural poetry. Beethoven himself was born hearing and later started going deaf in his mid-20s, yet he still composed incredible works. Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera, which is a tale of triumph as noblewoman Leonore disguises herself as a prison guard named Fidelio and rescues her husband from political imprisonment. This production wasn’t only shown in LA at Deaf West Theatre, the show also toured in Barcelona, Paris, and London, making it more accessible around the world. 

Due to the excellent detail to create such powerful musicals, and the amount of time needed to bring them to life, it is not often that you’ll see availability for these productions all year round. Personally, I will travel to see CODA once it comes to life on their stage, as I know it will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You can stay in the know about upcoming productions by going to Deaf West Theatre’s website and subscribing to their email newsletters so that you don’t miss out. This is your chance to experience something unique in not only the world of theatre but also in the world of inclusivity, bringing disabled and non-disabled people together as one.