Plays of Our Own (Routledge Series in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Theatre and Performance)

Plays of Our Own is the first anthology of its kind containing an eclectic range of plays by Deaf and hard-of-hearing writers. These writers have made major, positive contributions to world drama or Deaf theatre arts.

Their topics range from those completely unrelated to deafness to those with strong Deaf-related themes such as a dreamy, headstrong girl surviving a male-dominated world in Depression-era Ireland; a famous Spanish artist losing his hearing while creating his most controversial art; a Deaf African-American woman dealing with AIDS in her family; and a Deaf peddler ridiculed and rejected by his own kind for selling ABC fingerspelling cards. The plays are varied in style - a Kabuki western, an ensemble-created variety show, a visual-gestural play with no spoken nor signed language, a cartoon tragicomedy, historical and domestic dramas, and a situation comedy. This volume contains the well-known Deaf theatre classics, My Third Eye and A Play of Our Own.

At long last, directors, producers, Deaf and hearing students, professors, and researchers will be able to pick up a book of "Deaf plays" for production consideration, Deaf culture or multicultural analysis, or the simple pleasure of reading.

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Read the book review published in New York Theater by Jonathan Mandell here.

Promotional video of the book is available on author's YouTube channel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Willy Conley is a retired professor/chairperson of Theatre and Dance at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. He is an award-winning playwright who has been widely published and produced. His recent book was Visual-Gestural Communication: A Workbook in Nonverbal Expression and Reception (Routledge, 2019) .

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