Slashing Arts for the Deaf

I think this is a goddam shame and we as artists should do something
about this.  I don't know what.  Letter writing?  Calls to our
representatives in Congress?


Deaf Theater Troupes Reel From Federal Cuts 

Susan Stava for The New York Times
Schoolchildren in Kentucky watching the National Theater of the Deaf. 
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
Published: April 12, 2006

Several deaf-theater groups are struggling to stay afloat after the
federal government mysteriously cut funds for cultural programs for
the deaf around the country 16 months ago. 

Officials at the Department of Education, which administered a the
program that distributed some $2 million a year in grants, said they
did not see the change coming and did not know who in Congress had
ordered the cut in December 2004. "All we know is that we no longer
have the authority" to award those grants, said Lou Danielson, the
research director for the Office of Special Education Programs.
Congressional aides in the offices of Senators Christopher J. Dodd of
Connecticut and Tom Harkin of Iowa, both Democrats who have been
trying to reinstate the funds, said they had no idea who pulled the
plug or why. 
The program was part of landmark legislation that promised people with
disabilities equal educational opportunities. But without the grants,
the affected organizations, which produce theatrical fare seen in
schools, libraries and other public places throughout the country, are
worried about staying solvent.
The National Theater of the Deaf, based in West Hartford, Conn., the
group that many credit with pioneering the field, had been getting
$687,000 a year from Washington until the last of its federal grants
ran out in mid-2005. Since 1967, it has been producing shows that
feature deaf and hearing actors who communicate in a combination of
American Sign Language and spoken English. The company estimates that
its shows have been seen by 3.5 million people throughout the world.
Now the theater has gone two years without putting on a show for
adults and without conducting its summer training academy for deaf and
hard-of-hearing actors.
"Right now, we're looking just to keep the theater alive," said Paul
L. Winters, the group's executive director. "It's a national treasure
that we would hate to lose."
In North Hollywood, Calif., the Deaf West Theater Company, which won
critical acclaim for its adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical
"Big River," which went to Broadway in 2003, is having to make do
without the $800,000 a year that Washington was sending its way. When
the show toured Washington after playing on Broadway, the first lady,
Laura Bush, included it in a special presidential gala last summer,
where both she and the education secretary, Margaret Spellings,
praised it generously.
"Somebody, somewhere, must have been looking for every penny they
could, because it's not a lot of money," said Deaf West's managing
director, Bill O'Brien, referring to the $2 million that Washington
was doling out each year to qualified cultural programs for the deaf.
Other community and educational organizations in or near New York,
Chicago, Hartford, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington had also
received five- and six-figure grants and are now feeling the pinch.
The money they lost was cut from the 2004 reauthorization bill for the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which had allowed the
Office of Special Education Programs to award discretionary grants to
organizations that provide cultural experiences that "enrich the lives
of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and adults." That group,
according to federal estimates, can range anywhere from a small
fraction of 1 percent of the population up to about 3 percent,
depending on the extent of the hearing loss; if everyone who reports
any hearing difficulty is included, the estimates rise as high as 14
percent. 
The Dec. 22, 2004, e-mail message that notified Dr. Winters of the
impending change offered no rationale for it, but closed with a cheery
"Holiday Greetings!"
Since then, he has been trying to keep his organization afloat. Not
only did he put himself on furlough to cut his pay last year from
$75,000 to $48,500, but he also takes his turn with the scrub brush
every fifth week to clean toilets at the cottage his theater company
leases for its headquarters from the American School for the Deaf in
West Hartford.
Financial statements show he has cut costs to $560,000 in the fiscal
year that ended on March 31, 2005, from the $1 million that was spent
in fiscal 2004, his first year at the helm. Since then, he has
furloughed staff members whenever schools were closed to rein in the
payroll, and he forgives his deaf colleagues who refer to him in
American Sign Language with the same slashing motion that denotes the
word "ax."
Today, his company's slimmed-down theatrical offerings revolve mostly
around the Little Theater of the Deaf, which stages children's shows
that can be understood by the hearing and the hearing-impaired. At a
recent performance at New City Elementary School in Rockland County,
N.Y., students had prepared for the event by learning about American
Sign Language; they practiced applauding by fluttering their fingers
overhead. The show was called "Fingers Around the World ? Next Stop:
South of the Border," and the dialogue veered from spoken English and
Spanish to American Sign Language and Mexican Sign Language. "Are you
a talking cactus?" Naomi Ekperigin asked Christopher DeSouza, who took
on extra parts in the show to save the cost of an additional cast member.
"I'm a signing cactus," he corrected her.
Sue Dello, a third-grade teacher at the school, expressed hope that
Washington might restore the financing, adding that the play gave her
students exposure to a world that "they don't get sitting in their
nice homes in suburbia."

Because of the popularity of "Big River," Deaf West Theater has had
some money to cushion the fall. Still, 60 percent of the $1.2 million
in "revenue and support" that it reported in 2004 came from federal
financing, according to its latest financial statements. "We are
definitely starting to feel the pinch that the National Theater of the
Deaf is feeling," Mr. O'Brien said. "I would bet that the person who
struck through this priority had no idea what was being accomplished
with that money. That deaf people were back on Broadway for the first
time since 'Children of a Lesser God,' and that all of this was
happening for those few dollars."
Patricia Scherer, founder of the International Center on Deafness and
the Arts in Northbrook, Ill., credits her 32-year-old program with
nurturing the aspirations of people like Marlee Matlin, a former drama
student in her programs who went on to win an Academy Award for best
actress in 1986. The $100,000 in federal grants that the center
received in fiscal 2001, 2002 and again in 2003 for theatrical
projects made up one-fifth of its total budget. Commenting on
Congress's decision to cut programs for the deaf, she said she could
only surmise that deaf people had suffered "because they can't scream
loud enough" and could not swing elections.
Invited to a reception at the White House last June, on the day he was
to perform the part of Mark Twain in a segment from "Big River," Mr.
O'Brien took Secretary Spellings aside to make his well-rehearsed
pitch. He said he let her know that the production would never have
had the chance to go to Broadway or on tour without the $4 million
over all that Deaf West had received from the very program that
Washington was dismantling. "She told me to keep her posted," he said. 
When asked recently whether Secretary Spellings planned to involve
herself in this matter, her spokesman, Jim Bradshaw, said, "We defer
to Congress's judgment on this one." 








 
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