The play that is nearest and dearest to my heart, I wrote QUID PRO QUO in an attempt to establish my identity as a deaf theatre artist. At the time, I was a senior at Marquette University, the first and only deaf person in the theatre department. Even though I was fully accepted and embraced, I felt creatively alienated and I wanted to show everyone what I could do. Realizing that if I was both writing and directing it, it was far too much to take on an acting role in it as well, so I chose two of my closest friends - Michael Miro and Colleen Foy - and asked them if they would be willing to learn sign in a matter of weeks to do this for me. As it was a labor of love, none of us would earn any credits for it, but both of them immediately and thankfully agreed to do it. If either one of them had turned it down, I would not have done this play because they were the only ones I could think of that had the potential to make it work. All lines in the play were signed while two voice actors - Anne Yatco and Graham Jeep - spoke the lines simultaneously offstage.
We thought we would perform twice and then be done with it, but - at intermission, before the play was even done - Phylis Ravel, the head of the theatre department, told me that she was going to submit it to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. This was an immense honor for me because never before had Marquette submitted a play either written or directed by a student. Sadly, my original male voice - Graham Jeep - was unable to continue with us, so I replaced him with Joseph Fernandez. Over the next year, we competed at the local and regional levels, winning both and eventually being chosen as one of six out of thousands of plays nationwide to perform at the Kennedy Center in the spring of 2004. I also ended up winning several playwriting awards. In the end, QUID PRO QUO turned out to be the little play that could.
It is a particular source of pride for me that Colleen Foy, who learned American Sign Language for my play, later toured with the National Theatre of the Deaf and went on to a successful career in Hollywood, playing many roles that called on her fluency in the language. She played Russell Harvard's wife in the Oscar-winning film, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, the mother in NO ORDINARY HERO, along with many other roles on such television shows as CRIMINAL MINDS, COLD CASE, and - naturally - SWITCHED AT BIRTH. For more information on Colleen, you can click the links below.
We thought we would perform twice and then be done with it, but - at intermission, before the play was even done - Phylis Ravel, the head of the theatre department, told me that she was going to submit it to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. This was an immense honor for me because never before had Marquette submitted a play either written or directed by a student. Sadly, my original male voice - Graham Jeep - was unable to continue with us, so I replaced him with Joseph Fernandez. Over the next year, we competed at the local and regional levels, winning both and eventually being chosen as one of six out of thousands of plays nationwide to perform at the Kennedy Center in the spring of 2004. I also ended up winning several playwriting awards. In the end, QUID PRO QUO turned out to be the little play that could.
It is a particular source of pride for me that Colleen Foy, who learned American Sign Language for my play, later toured with the National Theatre of the Deaf and went on to a successful career in Hollywood, playing many roles that called on her fluency in the language. She played Russell Harvard's wife in the Oscar-winning film, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, the mother in NO ORDINARY HERO, along with many other roles on such television shows as CRIMINAL MINDS, COLD CASE, and - naturally - SWITCHED AT BIRTH. For more information on Colleen, you can click the links below.
Several years later, in the hopes of giving new life to it, I mounted a reading in NYC with several of my actor friends from BIG RIVER, including Scott Barnhardt (BOOK OF MORMON, original cast), Erin Eichberg, Tyrone Giordano (Broadway's BIG RIVER, as well as the movies A LOT LIKE LOVE and THE FAMILY STONE), Christopher J. Hanke (Broadway's CRYBABY and HOW TO SUCCEED... with Daniel Radcliffe), and Alexandria Wailes (BIG RIVER, choreographer for Deaf West's SPRING AWAKENING).
There have also been several regional productions.
There have also been several regional productions.
