Skyline High School’s American Sign Language (ASL) classes showed off their skills on January 22 by putting on a play titled Channeling Grimm directed by ASL teacher Jody Tolley. Performed at both Skyline High School and Utah’s School for the Blind and Deaf, this play made classic fairy tales more directed for a modern audience. 

The play was created to showcase the creativity and fun aspect of ASL and also to make it more accessible for everybody to enjoy the performing arts. Each act of the play was a different fairy tale, but they were performed as if shown on a modern TV, with subject matter ranging from documentary shows to soap operas.

There were some challenges when it came to making a play that all people would enjoy, both the hearing and the deaf. Tolley said, “In a play, there is often a large dramatic emphasis on the voice. Well, the deaf people wouldn’t know what is going on, so we can’t do just a voice only; you have to put a lot of thought into how every person in an audience is going to respond.”

 One of the biggest challenges for the cast was being expressive enough to convey the emotions they were assigned to without using spoken dialog. The actors heavily relied on their own facial expressions and overly dramatic hand gestures when conveying powerful emotions such as anger or frustration. 

Bethany Stewart, a Senior who has been taking ASL all four years of high school and a performer in the play, stated, “So other acting styles, you’re really focused on dancing in school plays,  and then the acting part is just kind of there, versus ASL plays, it’s all completely acting. There’s no songs, there’s typically no dancing unless it’s for a little bit, because it’s just not a part of deaf culture much.” With the lack of dancing and singing, this play was still able to create a story that worked with just acting.

Beyond the entertainment, this play was directly focused on celebrating the Deaf culture and American Sign Language users. To do this, the cast went and performed for deaf children at Utah’s School for the Deaf and Blind, in hopes of brightening their day. Being able to be there to help the children have a good time was one of the most inspirational things, according to Stewart. “After the play was all done, all the characters came forward and stood in front of the stage, and the kids were like come up and say hi to the characters, and it was just a really good experience to see the kids being able to interact with their favorite childhood movies, and normally deaf kids don’t get experienced things like that, and we made it available for them,” Stewart explained. 

With the success of Channeling Grimm, the ASL classes at Skyline hope to continue to create a play next year and continue the legacy of spreading a new culture throughout the community. Tolley said, “ASL is amazing. It can really change lives. Make sure to remember that deaf people exist and that they should be able to have equal access to everything that hearing people do, including plays and movies.”