Theatre production showcasing deaf actors

Inside Out Theater is hosting a show called Caustic Effect and it's an international collaboration featuring the deaf community. It's written by Monique Holt who lives in New York City and is a story about merfolk.

"It's based on a deaf theme, but the merfolk are not deaf but it still shows the struggle within a community," said Holt. "It's a very visual show, I think its fun to watch and I feel like now's the time for families to be able to take in this message and maybe children and young people will relate to some of those characters as well."

ACTORS FROM CANADA AND SWEDEN

The actors are from Canada and Sweden. Swedish twins Jamila and Aminia Ouahid are visual vernacular specialists and are sharing their experience with the Canadians.

"Canada doesn't have a lot of deaf actors," said Amina. "I think it's an emerging area and we need to be able to nurture the acting community, there are many deaf people who have tremendous creative abilities, but they need opportunity so yes, I would say Canada is somewhat behind compared to other countries."

Jules Dameron is the show's director from the U.S. who is a filmmaker and comes from a family of musicians. She says deaf actors often don't have access to training and so Caustic Effect is a workshop and an opportunity for actors to learn.

"I've always liked working with a variety of actors who have different levels of skills," said Dameron. "Because it gives me a run for my money, I like working with experienced actors because it's an opportunity for me to share what I've learned, what I've seen as well especially with deaf people."

WEARING MANY HATS

Landon Krentz was born in Saskatchewan and is wearing many hats for the production. He's the artistic director but also the lead actor. On top of those roles he's also grant writer, producer and in charge of casting.

"Here in Canada, we don't have that kind of support for deaf theater as they do in Sweden so it has been quite a large responsibility finding a community of allyship," said Krentz. "There aren't a lot of opportunities for me as a deaf artists here in Canada so I'm having to create my own opportunities."

Krentz got his start in acting working on music videos but wanted a medium highlighting his own natural expression. Now he's an advocate for deaf lead theatre.

"There's two beautiful worlds," he said. "There's the audio logical world as well as the deaf world and so we navigate both worlds.

"My goal really," he added, "is to inspire both the deaf and hearing audiences to come watch a show that's deaf led."

Caustic Effect runs September 16 & 17 at 1721 29 Avenue SW in the cSPACE King Edward.

Learn more about Inside Out Theatre here: www.insideouttheatre.com