The Interpreting for the Theater Institute brought 17 sign-language interpreters from around the country to New York in June for a week of intensive training. From Monday, June 3, to Saturday, June 8, the seminar, which is co-sponsored by Juilliard and the Theater Development Fund, kept participants busy from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. with its goal of improving every aspect of an interpreter's work, from body and hand position to increasing attention to the needs and desires of the deaf community.

Bob LoParo and Janna Sweenie interpreting a performance of 42nd Street. Photo by David LeShay

To reach that objective, five instructors coached the students in translation, performance, and Alexander Technique and held panel discussions that included many deaf people. Then there was 42nd Street. The participants saw the musical a minimum of five times during the week, in preparation for their final project: interpreting the show on Friday afternoon in the Juilliard Theater, with a recording serving as the auditory portion. The participants were broken up into groups of three or four, and each team was responsible for a section of the play. Students often interpreted for two or three characters at a time. The signing of the songs was more expressive and rhythmic than that of dialogue, as interpreters use ordinary, conversational-style signs for dialogue but use larger, grander signing for songs. They also included a rhythmic element for songs to reinforce the vibrations deaf people feel.

As a bonus, four of the students were selected to interpret small sections of the live performance of 42nd Street at the Ford Theater on Friday night, along with the professional interpreters. Signers peppered the left side of the theater, and the energy of the deaf audience, the students, and their supporters made it an exhilarating evening. Bob LoParo, from Cincinnati, was one of the students who interpreted on Broadway. He said that he was so overwhelmed to be chosen that he was in shock until after he had completed his section of the show. "Then I got a chance to take it all in and realize, that was me up there. That was so wonderful. At intermission, that's the part where I broke down. They brought me a card that everyone [in the seminar] had signed and wrote wonderful things. I opened it, and there was a photo of the show, and I looked at it and I thought, 'I never want to see this stupid play again!' as tears welled in my eyes."

On Saturday, the students received feedback on their work in individual evaluations. Lyssa Cook, an interpreter from St. Paul, Minn., said that the final evaluation "was phenomenal. It showed the progress that we made throughout the whole week. And they gave us things that we could still work on."

The students' enthusiasm for the Interpreting for the Theater Institute was unfaltering, despite the grueling schedule. Perhaps the seminar was so powerful because the instructors emphasized an interpreter's responsibility for making the play accessible to a deaf audience, as well as having an on-going dialogue with the deaf community. "You can't interpret in a vaccuum," instructor Candace Broecker-Penn said. LoParo said this was one of the strongest lessons he took home and hopes to apply it in an interpreting seminar he is planning in the Cincinnati area. He said, "No matter what we did, the theme kept coming back to, what do the deaf think? What is best for the deaf audience?" By emphasizing involvement, the seminar impacts not only the interpreters, but the deaf community across the country.