Jen took me to see the musical “Big River” last night. It was incredible! Totally awesome! First of all Huck Finn is one of my favorite stories anyway.

I didn’t know what to expect since it was acted by both deaf and hearing actors. I had visions of a quiet theater with captions running - boy was I wrong! It was beautiful! The seemlessness of the singing, acting and signing was flawless. The signing added a poetic, ballet-like effect.

The staging and set design was so cool - very simple layout but fully functional. The way the main set morphed into the raft was genius. There were so many neat things they did - a blog entry can’t to it justice.

The singing, signing and acting were great too. The guy who played Jim was outstanding. (Well, since I only know a little ASL, I’m guessing it was great - I enjoyed it!) The band sounded great as well, playing perched up to one side of the stage.

Nothing got in the way of the story at all. I was totally engrossed from beginning to end. It’s run at the Aronoff ends this weekend, but if you can see it!

Since Jen is taking ASL classes, she said it really helped to see how certain words and phrases translated into ASL.

Playbill details and a critique of the musical.

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