Miss-Delectable
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http://jam.canoe.ca/Theatre/2005/10/23/1275262-ap.html
Her face contorts with emotion, and her hands move quickly and forcefully as a powerful, bluesy song from Hairspray about racism is performed.
But Candace Broecker-Penn is not on the stage. She's standing in front and off to the left of the audience, a typical spot for a sign language interpreter.
And while the slight, 50-year-old blonde does everything she can to convey the meaning of the song I Know Where I've Been, she knows she can't be the centre of attention. It is a difficult balancing act well known to interpreters.
"We are not the show," she said. "We are connecting the audience to the show."
Interpreters such as Broecker-Penn and her frequent partner, 50-year-old Alan Champion, are quick to dismiss the notion that they are performers. They say they are simply providing a service. They are two of the approximately 10 sign language interpreters the Theatre Development Fund uses in a nearly 25-year-old program focused on making theatre more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing - an idea inspired by the success of Children of a Lesser God, the 1980 Tony Award-winning play that featured a deaf character in one of its leading roles.
And for just as long, Champion has been standing in front of audiences, expressing the words of some of the most acclaimed playwrights and composers in the world.
Like Champion, Candace Broecker-Penn has been with TDF's Theatre Access Project since its inception. She worked first behind the scenes for TAP before becoming one of its interpreters a few years later.
"I've always loved theatre so I thought it was an important experience for everyone to have," Broecker-Penn said.
Since the Broadway production of The Elephant Man, starring David Bowie, was interpreted in December 1980, nearly 150 shows have been interpreted on Broadway while roughly another 125 have used open captioning (where a small screen at the side of the stage scrolls the dialogue). TAP, which offers discounted tickets to the signed and open-captioned performances, also provides the service for off-Broadway productions in New York and select regional theatre productions.
"I've been to so many Broadway shows over the years and I don't recall not being able to go to see one because of (a) lack of interpreters," deaf theatregoer Abbie Lambert said in an e-mail interview.
Both Broecker-Penn and Champion are the children of deaf parents, so their careers as interpreters came naturally.
Broecker-Penn first began thinking about making theatre more accessible to deaf audiences after seeing her mother in a production of The Threepenny Opera at Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C. She helped pay for college by working as an interpreter and later toured as a speaking actor for the National Theatre for the Deaf.
Champion was born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., and later became an interpreter in St. Louis. He began to think about interpreting for Broadway after some deaf friends asked him to interpret a local production of The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid in the late 1970s.
"I thought, 'I'm moving to New York, because I want to interpret Broadway theatre.' I had no idea what the setup was," said Champion, who works for the state of New Jersey's Division of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
He moved to New York in August 1980, the same month as Broecker-Penn, and within four weeks he received a letter from TAP saying the organization needed interpreters for its new outreach program.
"It was just a weird confluence of events that happened to work out," he said.
Now, more than 20 years later, the duo are two of the best interpreters working in theatre. So good, in fact, that they are both instructors at a one-week intensive course at The Juilliard School that teaches students how to interpret for the theatre.
"Candy and Alan are a wonderful resource because they've done so many shows and they can draw on all kinds of examples, in terms of helping other theatre interpreters be better at what they do," said Lisa Carling, TAP's director.
Indeed, Champion and Broecker-Penn have experienced plenty during their interpreting careers. Like the time Broecker-Penn was interpreting Lynn Redgrave's one-woman show, Shakespeare for My Father. At the beginning of the second act, technicians forgot to put a light back on Broecker-Penn to help the audience see her more clearly. Redgrave held up the start of the act until the lights were fixed.
"She was really terrific," Broecker-Penn said.
Or the time that Champion was interpreting the musical Ain't Misbehavin' and one of the actors asked him before the show how to sign the phrase "fat and greasy" for a specific musical number. Sure enough, when the actor performed the song, he used the sign language - and encouraged the audience to join in.
"The entire house was signing," Champion said.
At a recent performance of Hairspray, Champion and Broecker-Penn were clearly enjoying themselves as they and colleague Cathy Markland interpreted the crowd-pleasing musical for the audience.
During the curtain call, the positive reaction for the three interpreters rivalled the biggest responses for the musical's speaking actors. The deaf and hard of hearing audience members all raised their hands and wiggled their fingers - the sign for applause - in a show of appreciation. Many of the actors on stage followed suit.
Things aren't always so easy. Plenty of plays and playwrights present challenges for interpreters: Tennessee Williams for his use of language and overlapping dialogue; Noel Coward for the way he often uses an inflection to convey an attitude; and Stephen Sondheim for the way he crams a huge volume of words into his songs. A slapstick comedy such as Noises Off can be "logistically difficult."
In those situations, interpreters will worry less about signing every word and worry more about getting the meaning across to the audience. The most important objective, interpreters say, is that the audience understands.
"When the audience can talk about the show - what they liked, what they didn't like - that really means that they really understood what we were doing," Broecker-Penn said. "That, I think, is the highest compliment."
Her face contorts with emotion, and her hands move quickly and forcefully as a powerful, bluesy song from Hairspray about racism is performed.
But Candace Broecker-Penn is not on the stage. She's standing in front and off to the left of the audience, a typical spot for a sign language interpreter.
And while the slight, 50-year-old blonde does everything she can to convey the meaning of the song I Know Where I've Been, she knows she can't be the centre of attention. It is a difficult balancing act well known to interpreters.
"We are not the show," she said. "We are connecting the audience to the show."
Interpreters such as Broecker-Penn and her frequent partner, 50-year-old Alan Champion, are quick to dismiss the notion that they are performers. They say they are simply providing a service. They are two of the approximately 10 sign language interpreters the Theatre Development Fund uses in a nearly 25-year-old program focused on making theatre more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing - an idea inspired by the success of Children of a Lesser God, the 1980 Tony Award-winning play that featured a deaf character in one of its leading roles.
And for just as long, Champion has been standing in front of audiences, expressing the words of some of the most acclaimed playwrights and composers in the world.
Like Champion, Candace Broecker-Penn has been with TDF's Theatre Access Project since its inception. She worked first behind the scenes for TAP before becoming one of its interpreters a few years later.
"I've always loved theatre so I thought it was an important experience for everyone to have," Broecker-Penn said.
Since the Broadway production of The Elephant Man, starring David Bowie, was interpreted in December 1980, nearly 150 shows have been interpreted on Broadway while roughly another 125 have used open captioning (where a small screen at the side of the stage scrolls the dialogue). TAP, which offers discounted tickets to the signed and open-captioned performances, also provides the service for off-Broadway productions in New York and select regional theatre productions.
"I've been to so many Broadway shows over the years and I don't recall not being able to go to see one because of (a) lack of interpreters," deaf theatregoer Abbie Lambert said in an e-mail interview.
Both Broecker-Penn and Champion are the children of deaf parents, so their careers as interpreters came naturally.
Broecker-Penn first began thinking about making theatre more accessible to deaf audiences after seeing her mother in a production of The Threepenny Opera at Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C. She helped pay for college by working as an interpreter and later toured as a speaking actor for the National Theatre for the Deaf.
Champion was born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., and later became an interpreter in St. Louis. He began to think about interpreting for Broadway after some deaf friends asked him to interpret a local production of The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid in the late 1970s.
"I thought, 'I'm moving to New York, because I want to interpret Broadway theatre.' I had no idea what the setup was," said Champion, who works for the state of New Jersey's Division of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
He moved to New York in August 1980, the same month as Broecker-Penn, and within four weeks he received a letter from TAP saying the organization needed interpreters for its new outreach program.
"It was just a weird confluence of events that happened to work out," he said.
Now, more than 20 years later, the duo are two of the best interpreters working in theatre. So good, in fact, that they are both instructors at a one-week intensive course at The Juilliard School that teaches students how to interpret for the theatre.
"Candy and Alan are a wonderful resource because they've done so many shows and they can draw on all kinds of examples, in terms of helping other theatre interpreters be better at what they do," said Lisa Carling, TAP's director.
Indeed, Champion and Broecker-Penn have experienced plenty during their interpreting careers. Like the time Broecker-Penn was interpreting Lynn Redgrave's one-woman show, Shakespeare for My Father. At the beginning of the second act, technicians forgot to put a light back on Broecker-Penn to help the audience see her more clearly. Redgrave held up the start of the act until the lights were fixed.
"She was really terrific," Broecker-Penn said.
Or the time that Champion was interpreting the musical Ain't Misbehavin' and one of the actors asked him before the show how to sign the phrase "fat and greasy" for a specific musical number. Sure enough, when the actor performed the song, he used the sign language - and encouraged the audience to join in.
"The entire house was signing," Champion said.
At a recent performance of Hairspray, Champion and Broecker-Penn were clearly enjoying themselves as they and colleague Cathy Markland interpreted the crowd-pleasing musical for the audience.
During the curtain call, the positive reaction for the three interpreters rivalled the biggest responses for the musical's speaking actors. The deaf and hard of hearing audience members all raised their hands and wiggled their fingers - the sign for applause - in a show of appreciation. Many of the actors on stage followed suit.
Things aren't always so easy. Plenty of plays and playwrights present challenges for interpreters: Tennessee Williams for his use of language and overlapping dialogue; Noel Coward for the way he often uses an inflection to convey an attitude; and Stephen Sondheim for the way he crams a huge volume of words into his songs. A slapstick comedy such as Noises Off can be "logistically difficult."
In those situations, interpreters will worry less about signing every word and worry more about getting the meaning across to the audience. The most important objective, interpreters say, is that the audience understands.
"When the audience can talk about the show - what they liked, what they didn't like - that really means that they really understood what we were doing," Broecker-Penn said. "That, I think, is the highest compliment."
