I found myself in a very tight schedule and could ONLY go see the acclaimed play "Spring Awakening" on Sunday, Nov 2nd. On my first tentative schedule, I was ready to book my trip and I found out that the only performance was sold out. I tried even on Nov 1st, but also sold out. After a few tweets back on forth with the Deaf Awakening social media manager, I got an email 1 week later saying that there was a new show time added to the schedule , which was also Nov 2nd at night. The email was sent at 1am (eastern time) and by 11am the show was sold out again. There were some other days, but that was the only day available on my schedule to plan a trip to LA and see the show.
Luckily, when I saw the email I immediately opened the scheduled day, but since I was sleeping I didn't want to proceed with the whole purchase in view that, 1; I was in bed and in no way willing to get up to look for a credit card, 2; as awakened in the middle of the night my eyes could barely open and to read the phone screen was painful. However, even though I didn't proceed with it, somehow the site held a ticket as if the purchase was still in process. After I saw the show was sold out in about 10 hours, some light bulb light up in my head and I decided to try continuing the purchase on the phone from during the night, guess what, it worked..I got my ticket to the night show. Now it was time to get the trip planned to LA and enjoy the show. Again, as the schedule was tight, I decided to plan a very short trip which ended up to be a 1.5 days.
I arrived in LA on November 2 at 11 am (going back to NY on November 3rd at 10:40pm) but in that little time I got to see an amazing show, met 2 of my very favorite Deaf actors (one of the the reason I fell in love with ASL) plus the famous Deaf director and founder of DWIF, one of the lead actress of my fave show, one of the writers of my fave show, with whom I had a great time at lunch talking about all we never talked before and I got to get the picture I wanted and I wasn't able to on my last trip. So, to summarize, it was REALLY worth it and a very well spent time I had.
The Deaf West amazing show, "Spring Awakening" is every bit of greatness everyone and every media are saying. Flawless performance from every actor and actress, engaging, vibrant, passionate and very active. The only thing that bothered me a little was the amount of "explicit" sexual content, but that is just my taste, many may feel there is not enough of it. Even with that, it is an exceptional show and SOOOOO worth the flight if it was just that. The Deaf actors and voice actors are amazing, the choreography is stunning, music is phenomenal. Seeing the Deaf actors dance and signing at the same time in the rhythm of the music they are not hearing is the most beautiful thing and what drives me so much into the beauty of the ASL and Deaf culture. No wonder it has been sold out all the shows for a while now. It is definitely a must see.
Before the show started, while still on the line to get in, Vanessa Marano showed up with her friend Megan. I found out later that she had reserved seats, but while in line right behind me, I could not recognize her at all. She is so tiny, that what we see on TV seems to be pure visual effects, or the camera does put on 10lbs on people. I knew she was short since I saw one scene of her and Sean Berdy where she was with no heels and poor girl had to hug him and to do that she was basically standing on the tip of her toes. Talking about Sean, he was there too, but not to see the show, he saw the afternoon show and stayed after just visiting his fellow actors, but lucky for me, since he was showing up around the lobby area, I got to ask him for a picture. Pause here to say, Sean (as I mentioned on one of my posts before) is one of the main reason why I fell in love with sign language. His signing is so beautiful and his acting is the most amazing of the Deaf actors in the show (Switched at Birth) so seeing him was kind of a complete shock (in a good way) I was mesmerizing at his signing when talking with some of his friends that were on the line as well, but I was sooooooo disappointed when I asked him (in sign language and voice of course)to take a picture he was the most cutest and gentlest to say "Sure" with his voice but NO signing. OK, so I took the picture and I signed "thank you", and he answered back "no problem, bye" again, NO signing. Yes I love seeing Deaf people talking,, specially the ones that we don't get to see often because on screen Emmett barely talked 5 times in the entire 3 seasons (72 episodes so far), but honestly, my "love" for his signing is way too big to put his mouth before his hands..I WANTED TO SEE HIM SIGNING!!! Daniel Durant, on the other hand did not say a word with his voice, he is the sweetest guy I've ever met and took his time talking to me in sign language. I basically spent the whole time after the show talking to Daniel who gave me too much attention I'm not use to from a celebrity like him, especially. Simply amazing! As I always tell people, put a show where there are only Sean Berdy and Daniel Durant on it, I can watch it 24/7/365 days on the roll. Love them as actors either acting separated or together in a scene.
On the line I also had the great pleasure to meet Jules Dameron, the great Deaf director of many ASL videos. Jules talked and signed, and oh boy, what a patience she had with my millions ASL mistakes, but that was not a problem to her. As per her view, and (again, this writing is not just for my memory of the moments but my observation of the Deaf culture and behaviors) many other Deaf people I've met, they are happy we, hearing, are learning and they are happy to help teaching us. I learned the sign for "fired" from Jules and "shy" from Daniel. And once more, they are huggers. After 15 years living in this country, I learned that when you first meet someone you can shake hands, Brazilian culture you can kiss someone (on the cheek) twice (at least for girls), and apparently in the Deaf culture, you hug. Maybe that can explain why Sean Berdy is always hugging people when taking a picture (yes I noticed that). I grew up with the "Ricky Martin" way (he has been my idol for many years now) and he mix and match depending on the person, some pictures he is just close to the person, some he is shaking hands, some he is hugging, some he is kissing, but Sean, it doesn't matter who, as far as I could see, he is ALWAYS hugging. Anyway, back to Jules, she is amazing and also took a good time talking to me, explaining about deaf people and of course just chatting.
After the show, the cast had almost the entire audience waiting for them outside and we were basically being pushed out of the place when they were turning off all the lights. While there, the SAB reunion of Daniel and Anthony (who was also in the play) with Vanessa and her interpreter friend, Ashley took the center hall and took so many pictures with the cast of Spring Awakening, together and everyone related to any artistic media. That was when Daniel took the time to call attention to tell them about me. It was nice their reaction, but remember, I'm shy :-) Anyway, on the wave, I got to take a picture with Vanessa Marano, but the funny part was that, the whole time I was talking to her using signs as well. That until in the middle of a sentence I realized that I was signing to a hearing person and started to apologize, after all she was answering me because of what I said with my voice and not with my hands. That was embarrassing, but it seems like she was kind of use to it that she didn't even care.
The following day I had lunch with Michael Ross, ex-writer for Switched at Birth who told me all different things about his experience working with Daniel Durant, Anthony Natale and Sean Berdy, including that on set they are or act completely different from what I had experienced. Sean signs all the time and hardly uses his voice while Daniel is a talker and only sign with other Deaf people.
I just need to end this with one thing, amazing trip, amazing show, amazing people!!
