Please see some online scripts on this website linked below. Other scripts that are not on the website are listed here as well as linked to the scripts available on the Deaf Theatre website.
WomenTalk by Bruce Hlibok. Underneath an overlay of comic strip scenes, it deals with the serious problem of spousal domestic abuse in the Deaf community. Online script available via eBook.
Online courtesy of the Deaf Theatre website. Also available via Plays of Our Own eBook.
Silent Salzburg by Richard MedugnoSilent Salzburg is a powerful two-act drama that tells the story of an Austrian Christian family that goes into hiding in 1940 to protect their Deaf teenage son from sterilization or worse by the Nazis. It is not a true story, but is based upon historical events and circumstances. Playwright Richard Medugno is the father of a Deaf daughter and a hearing son. He wrote Silent Salzburg for Deaf and hearing actors to be performed for both Deaf and hearing audiences. The play received its first public performances at the California School for the Deaf Fremont's Little Theatre in the fall of 2006. Audience responses and reviews from Deaf and hearing individuals were overwhelmingly positive and appreciative. "Richard Medugno's genius is in using the parallel between the Holocaust victims and the struggle of the Deaf culture to make the world understand that each of us is perfect as we are. Stop trying to make us somebody else's perfect and see the beauty in us just as we are. We all have value, and we are all unique.' There is a parallel message and he has merged themes brilliantly in this story by depicting a family with a Deaf son fleeing a small city in Austria to avoid a program for sterilizing all Deaf citizens so they cannot have children. This then creates the situation where the whole family becomes silent while in hiding in Salzburg and the opportunities for learning sign language emerge. The play sheds a bright light on the importance of communication between father and son, mother and daughter, and sister and brother; the importance of the family bond, overcoming the things that divide us, and ultimately, the importance of understanding and being understood." Lori Steed Past President of IMPACT
Non-deaf script. The Ghost of Chastity Past or The Incident at Sashimi Junction. In a Japanese pagoda/saloon, the geisha Sweet Chastity finds herself loved by two gunslingers. This leads to a hilarious duel at high noon in the annals of the west or east. The dueling cowboys face off in a sumo wrestling match complete with six-shooters. This play combines the solemn dramas of Japanese theatre with the bawdy Wild West of Hollywood. Online via eBook.
Technology
Whispers of a Savage Sort by Raymond LuczakDoogle confronts its characters with the intrusion of technological communication devices parallel to the virtually forced intimacy of such a small, close community.
Willy Conley's award-winning play Broken Spokes is a story that is not about deafness but about the human condition as reflected through deaf eyes. It features two deaf brothers and a deaf woman in the aftermath of an accident that has left one of the brothers a brain damaged man-child. Broken Spokes is also unique in that it employs the rich sign mine tradition in the storytelling process. http://www_the tactile mind.com/books.
Tribes by Nina Raine'I thought everyone's parents spoke like that. Then I realised.' A penetrating play about belonging, family and the limitations of communication. Billy's family, like every other, is a club, with its own private language, jokes and rules. You can be as rude as you like, as possessive as you like, as critical as you like. Arguments are an expression of love, and after all, you love each other more than anyone in the world. Don't you? But Billy, who is deaf, is the only one who actually listens. When he meets Sylvia, he decides he finally wants to be heard. Nina Raine's play Tribes was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in October 2010. It won Best New Play at the Off-West End Theatre Awards. Tribes had its US premiere at the Barrow Street Theatre, Off-Broadway, in 2012, winning the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.
Snooty by Raymond LuczakBrings to life the difficulties of surviving the social pecking order in a deaf residential school. The main character's only escape is a rich fantasy life in which he is in control
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