GARRETT
I just stay within a certain radius to the house.

04:53
DONNA
Ahh, okay.

GARRETT
That's the nice thing about being in Astoria. Everything is right here. I have food options close by. I have no reason to venture out very far. And really, if I need anything, I simply go online and order. Then it's delivered right to me.

05:14
DONNA
Interesting...

GARRETT
I haven't been more than a mile from my house since March. My world has really just become this bubble. You know the old tv show, well... not really old, but from a few years ago. It was called "The Dome" and was based on a Stephen King story. It was this small town that had a big dome placed over it and people couldn't get out. That's my life now!

BRIAN
That actually sounds like a pretty good idea right now!

GARRETT
Right? We could all be under the dome and COVID wouldn't be able to get in and we would be safe.

06:04
DONNA
Perfect analogy! So, what if you have family, friends, people you can't see outside of the dome? What do you do in those situations?

GARRETT
We will use video chat with FaceTime or Skype. t's interesting, before the pandemic I had never really FaceTimed with my father. We would usually text back and forth, that kind of thing. I should say that my family are all back in Wisconsin. Remember, that's where I was born and raised. I'm the only one here in NYC. The one that escaped! But I digress. So, my father, I told him that I wanted to see you, not just text with you. He's getting older and showing some effects of Parkinson's, and I noticed his texts were starting to become shorter and shorter. I suggested FaceTime and he seemed hesitant. He's getting older and didn't feel comfortable using it. I asked my sister, who lives nearby, to go over and show him how FaceTime works. It was a little bit of an awkward start, but he's gotten more used to it. Plus, my sister is there to help out as needed. So, we do FaceTime with each other, but there is one issue that's been a struggle. I grew up using oral communication and while my father did learn to sign a little bit, but for the most part we communicated with speech and me lipreading him. When we are together in person, it's easy for me to catch what he's saying. But online, of course many times the connection isn't perfect, and the video can be choppy. Lipreading is easier live, but online... it's just more work for me. Don't misunderstand, I'm thrilled that I'm able to see my dad, but it's more work for me to try and catch the lipreading. I'm often saying things like "Can you go back and say it again" or "Do you mind trying to sign a little? Maybe just the first letter of the word?". It's a challenge. So, there are definitely pros and cons.

08:27
DONNA
Wow. Technology is great, but language is another issue. You mentioned you haven't been more than a mile from your house since March. How are you feeling being confined to the space? Your "bubble" so to speak.

GARRETT
Honestly, I feel lucky. I feel like my situation of being in a house helps to reduce the feeling of being closed in. Many of my friends live in apartments so there is a feeling of cabin fever. With me, I have a house with two floors, plenty of room as well as a backyard. I love to garden, so I'm out there every day....

BRIAN
It's beautiful! I've seen pictures.

GARRETT
Yes, you've seen pictures. I have a lot of roses back there. I think I have about thirty different roses in total. So, I'm out in the backyard often enjoying that. Really, if the weather's nice, I can spend all day out there. Then at night, or when it's raining, I'm inside the house. In the room that I'm in now we have some workspaces set up. I do have a desk up in my bedroom, but I wanted to keep areas separate. The bedroom desk is my ‘home' desk, while the desk I'm at now is my ‘work' desk. I needed to separate my work life from my everyday home life. I usually don't sit in this space unless I'm actively working. For example, when it gets close to 2:00 pm.... seems there's some freezing video... so, I'll think "oh, it's time to start work", so I'll head over to the desk and feel like I'm going into my "office". That really helps me keep things separate and create a routine. I can't imagine being stuck inside a small apartment with no backyard everyday all day. That's even worse. So, I do consider myself lucky. Unfortunately, not everyone is in the same situation as me. I've very thankful for what I do have.

11:23
DONNA
It sounds like that space both inside and outside really helps. Do you feel socially isolated? Or are you staying in contact with people that feels sufficient?

GARRETT
That's a good question. And a complicated answer. For my full-time job, I teach ASL. So that means all day, every day, I'm involved with video calls and teaching and interacting with people online. As a result, I notice I often experience "Zoom Fatigue". So, once my work is done, I turn the computer off and I step away from it. I'll admit that as a result, I have been less in touch with friends. Of course, I miss my friends and being in touch, chatting with them, but I don't feel socially isolated. I interact with people all day now, so the evenings are my time to let go, be alone and just catch a breath. Another thing that really helps me is my dog. She's over there watching me now. I need to take her out for walks 3-4 times a day, of course with a mask. That helps me escape for a little while. It's my "break" time where I can get out of the house and away from the work. Walking around the area has been another way to help break the monotony.

13:08
DONNA
Perfect! Ok, Brian.... your turn.

The Deaf community...have been using video technology to communicate for a while now and are used to it! So, when this pandemic hit, hearing people are having a hard time adjusting while for the Deaf community, it's something we have a lot of experience with.

BRIAN
Let's see... many of these things we've touched on. I'd like to go a little deeper and get more insight about staying connected with friends, family.... your community. Your Deaf community, your theater community.... how do you maintain that "connection"?

GARRETT
You know it's interesting... I've noticed on social media, like Facebook and Twitter, that a lot of hearing people freaking out a bit that all of their contacts will now be online, digitally, or on the phone and they don't have physical contact with them. I look at that and think.... you know, I feel like, we, in the Deaf community have been doing this for years and years! We have been using video technology to communicate for a while now and are used to it! So, when this pandemic hit, hearing people are having a hard time adjusting while for the Deaf community, it's something we have a lot of experience with.

14:20
BRIAN
That's a great point. Still there's that feeling of want to interact with members of those communities. Now that life has moved to the "virtual" space for now, do you feel like this is more or less access to things? For example, there seems to be a lot more access to different events we wouldn't normally have access to. So maybe there's something in California that you can now attend in this virtual life. That kind of access.

GARRETT
I will say for personal use, online is great. Zoom, FaceTime, Skype... all of those are great for one-on-one conversations. But this platform, particularly Zoom and Google Hangouts, is still very hearing focused. In big meetings, regardless if they are all deaf or... actually, there are different challenges for each. In a meeting with many Deaf people, it's difficult to get everyone's attention. We spend a lot of time waving at the camera trying to get people to look. These two people in these boxes might be talking to each other, or those two in those boxes, so while those conversations are happening, I'm trying to get everyone's attention. It seems to take forever! So, while it's nice, it's hard to get everyone to pay attention. That's one thing.

Additionally... unfortunately bandwidth is based on... really, bandwidth is better for sound than it is for movement. If several people are signing at the same time, the quality of the video will be reduced. That means you have to limit the number of people signing. If all of the participants are signing, it becomes really choppy and hard to see. If one person is signing, then it's better. Again, this goes back to Hearing Privilege. Deaf people have to be mindful to limit the signing, while Hearing people can listen to multiple things at once. Another issue is that looking at a computer screen all day can really take a lot out of you. Hearing people are now learning that. For many years, Deaf people have been saying that we experience something called Concentration Fatigue. We have to keep our eyes on the interpreter all the time. If we look away, then we miss information. Hearing people now seem to be slowly understanding that. Still, I notice many hearing people still have a tendency to look away aimlessly, while on Zoom, and will be listening. They might be looking down writing, or looking out the window, or looking around their space. Deaf people can't do that. They have to keep focused on the interpreter. Many times, in long meetings, my eyes just start to glaze over and I need a break. I have to get up a walk away for a minute. Sometimes that's hard for hearing people to understand. They can be looking away from the screen and still participate. So that's frustrating. But wait, I have more. I have so many things I could talk about.

DONNA
This is interesting!

GARRETT
I'm involved with many meetings with hearing people. Most often, I might be the only Deaf person with an interpreter. Of course, anytime I sign, the interpreter will voice for me. But that means, the camera will automatically be focused on the interpreter. Which means the hearing people aren't seeing me, they are seeing the interpreter. If you can hear them, you don't need to see them! They have to figure out a way to somehow link that person's voice with my picture, so anytime that person's voice is heard, my picture comes up in the camera. Fortunately, one of the places where I teach is Google. I'm now actively in contact with them and letting them know about the issue and they are working on it.

19:14
DONNA
That is so fascinating! You really hit on some great points.

BRIAN
Something else I've noticed with Zoom is that you can't pin the interpreter and still see the presenter and/or the power point slides at the same time. You have to pick just one.

GARRETT
Yes! That's another thing! I love screen sharing. I think it's a great idea. The problem is that the people in the meeting become tiny little squares. The interpreter gets really small and I struggle seeing them. Let me show you the hack that I've come up with. I use Apple TV and play the slides on this monitor. I don't use screen sharing for that. I can still see my students' larger pictures and they can see the slides behind me.

20:29
DONNA
Good idea!

BRIAN
Let's see.... the rest of what I had here was technology related, so I think that's been covered. Donna, your turn!

21:19
DONNA
Let's move on to talk about the impact of COVID-19 on three different areas. What are some challenges that you've experienced regarding medical appointments, education, and employment?

[Garrett's video froze....]

23:01
DONNA
Let's move on to talk about the impact of COVID-19 on three different areas. What are some challenges that you've experienced regarding medical appointments, education, and employment?

GARRETT
Luckily, I haven't yet needed to see a doctor during this time, so I can't really speak to that aspect. Knock on wood! For education and employment, for me those are really tied together. I will be starting school in the fall. Actually, I have an orientation meeting tomorrow and hopefully we will find out if we will be online or in person for the fall semester. That's another interesting thing. I have a feeling that we will be online. Honestly, I would actually prefer that because of the struggle of trying to understand people with their masks on.

I realized that if classes are online, I'm not limited to interpreters who are here in New York... I can pick my preferred interpreters from all over the country. That's cool.

24:26
DONNA
That was my next question. Let's hear your thoughts.

GARRETT
Going to campus and trying to navigate that would be difficult. Right now, I just go to the grocery store and with masks, I don't know if people are talking with me. Sometimes I'll notice a person looking at me and I'm wondering if they are talking to me or not? I don't know because I can't see their mouth. It's really frustrating. I can't imagine trying to go to school, to class with everyone having masks on. I'm sure when we do start school in person again, we will be required to wear masks, so that's extremely frustrating. So online seems like the better option right now. Not the best, but more accessible related to communication.

Excuse me...I have something in my eye. And got it.

I realized that if classes are online, I'm not limited to interpreters who are here in New York. That means I can use interpreters from all over. Brian, I think you know my friend, Sandi Smith?

BRIAN
Oh yes, I do!

GARRETT
I've already given her a heads up... She's in Milwaukee, WI... that if classes are online, she's one of my preferred interpreters. She's perfect! We've known each other for years, we trust each other. Plus, she has a wealth of experience in theater. Didn't she go to Juilliard with you, Brian?

BRIAN
Yes! That's where I met her.

GARRETT
So, the point is... we can... I can pick my preferred interpreters from all over the country. That's cool. I don't actually trust many interpreters. I'm going to school for a master's degree in writing, so I need their language to be at that level. And it's not just writing, it's theater writing. I'm going to be throwing out many words and signs that only people that work in theater will know. Many times, I'm signing and about 95% of interpreters don't understand my point because they have no idea what I'm talking about. So, I have to find interpreters that know me, know theater, and have higher level language skills. Honestly, how many interpreters have master's degrees? If I'm going to school for a master's I expect my interpreter to have at least the same level of education as I do, or a degree above.

27:32
DONNA
That's a challenge.

GARRETT
Yes, it's a big challenge. And of course, many people don't understand that. Most people are like "Come on, any interpreter is fine"! That's my biggest everyday struggle. So, there's some positives and negatives to having classes online.

BRIAN
As a follow-up, is Hunter College open to having interpreters from all over work for them? Or have you asked? What was their response?

GARRETT
Yeah, I did look into this. I am always struggling with interpreters. I'm always preemptively doing a lot of work because I don't want a last-minute interpreter put [on] it. I know it's going to be a struggle, so I start very early. I started researching Hunter a few months ago asking them what interpreting agency they use. I then found that agency and reached out to them with a list of my preferred interpreters. They told me that if there were interpreters on that list that they didn't currently contract with, they would contract with them for me.

29:12
BRIAN AND DONNA
That's great!

GARRETT
My reputation precedes me, so people know not to fuck with me. Excuse my language.

DONNA
Sometimes you have to make a big "noise". That's great! I hope this sets a precedent for other Deaf people moving forward as well.

GARRETT
Actually, many interpreters in NYC don't like working with me because they know that I will call them out. I just will. I don't just sit back and accept that.

29:51
DONNA
It sets a precedent moving forward. That brings us to the third area and that's how COVID-19 has impacted employment. Has anything new come out of it?

GARRETT
Again, education and employment are really connected for me as a teacher. Going back to our discussion before about the challenge of having too many people signing at the same time, I ended up dropping the actual live class times. I'll talk more about that in a bit. I made the transition to more of a one-on-one or two-on-one meeting. Two students was my maximum. That gives me a chance to really focus on those students. Having everyone in the same session would be too much to focus on.

Unfortunately, when COVID hit and the shutdown happen in mid-March, I had already started teaching. My two primary teaching locations are Laguardia Community College here in NYC in their ASL program and Google. With Google, we had a discussion and mutually agreed to just cancel and drop the classes for now. Laguardia classes were required to continue. That was fine, but I told them that I won't teach a live class. First of all, I don't trust the students' bandwidth. Can you imagine having to try and focus on all of the students and deal with their tech issues? Nope. So, I preferred them to be on their own time. I would record video lectures and upload those, assign them various assignments and then let them work with what they had. Maybe if the video was slow because of the connection, they could try it again later. If they had any questions, or wanted to meet, they could always make an appointment and we could have a one-on-one video meeting. But meeting the entire class live online is a recipe for disaster.

32:52
DONNA
So, that's your education piece, but what about the theater piece? With all of the theaters shut down, how are you replacing that? Can you talk a little bit about Deaf Broadway?

GARRETT
This is a rich story. How much time do we have left?

BRIAN
We have until 10:50... so we have about half an hour.

GARRETT
Ok, I'll try to condense it.

BRIAN/DONNA
We are so excited to see the story!

GARRETT
Right after the shutdown happened, it was right around March 22nd or 23rd. That happened to also be the time of Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday! Of course, he's the amazing writer of so many great shows, like Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods. His 90th birthday! As you can imagine, we all love his work so, to celebrate him, we had a virtual watch party of two of his shows that had been recorded. Those were Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods. So, we watched those with closed captions. And of course, we are theater people, so I think we had about...seven Deaf people and three hearing people. The hearing people are friends of ours and fluent signers. We all watched together and of course the Deaf were signing along with the show. It's the same as hearing people singing along with the shows. So, the Deaf folks were doing our version of that by signing. Many times, we realized we didn't actually know from the captions who were saying the lines. They weren't clearly labeled. All this time I thought this character said this line, but the hearing friends told me it was actually another character.

And, while we were signing along with the movie, our hearing friends told us that we were missing a lot of lines. It wasn't us, but the captions were missing many of the lines. Plus, as you know, Sondheim is famous for his fast lyrics and overlapping lyrics. The captions would often pick one and not caption the overlapping part.

So, the songs would be playing at the same time. For example, the song Joanna... actually, the song Kiss Me, which is a duet and the song Ladies in Their Sensitivities, which is also a duet. Here we have two different songs that are happening at the same time. The captioning ignored one of the songs and just focused on one. So, the Deaf audience is missing so much information. We then thought... why don't we try to sign it the right way ourselves for each other to finally see the show how it was written? We had to figure out who said what and then we wanted to assign each character to one actor instead of two-three people signing the entire show. We wanted that one-to-one character assignment so that if there were two, three, four people singing at the same time, then we could see four people signing at the same time. We realized that Zoom is the perfect medium for that with its different windows. So, for the first time ever, we Deaf actors finally understood harmony. We could see everyone signing at the same time. Most of the time an interpreted performance might have two or three interpreters, four if we are lucky. That's not harmony. Harmony is twenty Deaf actors signing at the same time.

So, we had twenty Deaf actors from all over the world doing one show. In the beginning we started with Sweeney Todd just to do it for fun. Friends and family heard that we were doing it and really wanted to see it, so word started to spread pretty quickly, and it became a big thing. We knew we had stumbled onto something special. So, we continued doing these shows like Into the Woods, among several others. We became so big that theater websites started to talk about us. Stephen Sondheim's lawyer even heard about us and reached out to see what's up. We were a little nervous, but we set up a video meeting between the lawyer and MTI.... Music Theatre International. They control the rights to most shows. Again, we were pretty nervous beforehand, but we went into the meeting and explained that we were only providing access to the shows in ASL. We weren't "performing" the show. I mean, we are actors of course, but we were just providing the ASL, so Deaf interpreters you could say. In addition, I gave many examples of where the captioning was lousy. Often, I would sign something one way, but a hearing friend would tell me the affect was wrong. So, while I had thought the line was delivered seriously, it would actually be a sarcastic delivery. That was a realization for me. The captioning is flat and while you can read the lines, there's no idea about the emotional reason behind them. Many times, we can't actually see the actor, or know which actor is saying the line. It's all a big puzzle and many times the pieces don't come together in a picture. So, we explained all of this to Sondheim's lawyer and MTI. Both were shocked and had no idea! I mean, we were just trying to provide access to Sondheim's work the way he wrote it! We weren't condensing it or editing it... it was his show in its entirety. They ended up giving us permission to use the show. And moving forward, any show that we wanted. So, we started something new. MTI said that as far as they were concerned, we could have the rights to everything. They would basically give us whatever we wanted. But the problem was that we needed access to a visual score, not just an audio version. We aren't presenting the blocking or any of the action of the show, so we needed a recorded version of the show so we could sign to that. However, MTI doesn't own the rights to the video recordings. Any time we find a new show, we have to look for who produced it, then try and contact them and explain what we are doing. Again, MTI was willing to give us the rights to materials, but we had to first get the individual rights owner's permission. That's why our pace has become slower.

The three of us that started Deaf Broadway; myself, my roommate Miriam, and a friend Kim from Brooklyn, all have day jobs. We don't make any money from this project. We are doing this because we love providing access to the Deaf community. So, during our "down" time we search for the producers of the recordings, try to track them down and send emails... it's like a wild goose chase trying to find the information. Many of Sondheim's shows were actually filmed and produced back in the 80s, late 70s. Most of those producers are in their 70s, 80s, 90s even. They aren't paying attention to their emails. So, it's a big challenge for us. We already have two shows on hold right now waiting for the rights. Once those are approved, we will release the videos. We don't want to make any more shows until we are able to release the two that we have finished. Additionally, with the Black Lives Matter movement happening now, we really want to promote more Deaf talent of color. We've always been inclusive from the very beginning. In fact, for Sweeney Todd, our Joanna was black. Lauren Ridloff, who was the lead in Broadway's Children of a Lesser God, was our Joanna. The character isn't black, but we picked the person that we wanted for the role. So, we really try to recruit diversity. Of course, now, we want even more! It's really nice because we often hear from the Deaf community as well as from Deaf talent of color who tell us "Thank you! We never get the opportunity to show our work. To show what we can do! Deaf Broadway is that opportunity!" Plus, Deaf actors tend to live all over the country. It's rare that we are in one place together. Rarely do we get to work together, see each other's work, and learn from each other. Zoom provides the perfect opportunity for that. For the first time really, we are all working with each other. It's a beautiful experience.

44:09
DONNA
Really, I love hearing that from this really challenging time, it's easy to list all of the negatives, but it also has some benefits. I hope those benefits will continue to stay with us moving forward. There have been pros and cons, and this is a big pro!

GARRETT
Yep, it's the silver lining.

45:20
DONNA
Sorry, missed that. Say again? This section would also be hard to edit out of the video. Donna and Garrett overlapped with this, so editing it out would be impossible.

GARRETT
The silver lining.

DONNA
Yes, I really appreciate hearing those stories.

44:34
It seems almost worth all the frustrations to break through and develop better opportunities.

GARRETT
Agreed! Honestly, I really do believe that if not for COVID, Deaf Broadway would not be here. It's a product of the situation.

44:51
BRIAN
After COVID-19 is "gone", how do you imagine your life? What will be the same? What will be different?

GARRETT
I don't even know what tomorrow is going to be like. At this point, there are no guarantees. Predicting anything is impossible. So, I'm just living life day by day and gonna see what happens.

I find myself doing less planning for the future and more living in the moment. I don't know where I will be in one year, one month, one week even. Who knows?

45:26
BRIAN
It's a really great point. We're learning a lot about what matters and what doesn't. Again, I don't like to say it's been a "good" experience...

GARRETT
An "important" experience.

BRIAN
Yes. An important experience to really look at a lot of things about ourselves.

GARRETT
I find myself doing less planning for the future and more living in the moment. I don't know where I will be in one year, one month, one week even. Who knows?

BRIAN
I don't even know what I'm doing this afternoon.

46:12
DONNA
I have a follow up question. Once COVID-19 is behind us, what do you see for Deaf Broadway, or the theater profession.

BRIAN
Yes, what would you like to see?

GARRETT
We'd like to continue doing Deaf Broadway because we feel it's an important tool for two reasons. One... to show the diversity of talent. We notice that very often it's the same two or three actors that get chosen over and over again. They are good actors for sure, but there are many more out there. So, it gives them opportunities. For example, one of our actors was contacted by Disney+ for a new show and wanted to see her work. She was able to contact us for a clip of her work from Deaf Broadway. Of course, we were happy to send it so she could send that to Disney+. So, we are giving them exposure. We are helping them build their reel. That's important.

47:27
BRIAN
That's great! So, during this present situation, what has really surprised you the most? Has there been something that makes you say, "I can appreciate this unexpected moment?"

GARRETT
I don't know if you'd call it a surprise or a confirmation of what I suspected. So many people don't take the COVID-19 situation seriously. They don't take simple steps to help resolve the situation. I walk my dog three – four times a day and I wear my mask. But I see so many people out and about without one. Honestly, I feel like if people would just suck it up and just do it, this would be over much faster.

DONNA
I agree.

GARRETT
So, it's not really surprising as much as it is disappointing. I mean, come on. I sacrifice and stay at home and that does have many positives. My dog is thrilled for one! But I feel like my own contribution is worthless because of the people not doing anything out there. It's not fair.

49:20
BRIAN
I recently saw a meme that said something like "the people that are staying home and doing what they are supposed to are the people that did the group project work by themselves".

GARRETT
Yep, that was me! And also, I see how many times, pre-COVID, anytime I needed something for my.... for access, the world at-large would scoff at that. But now, many people are using disability laws to justify a reason for not wearing a mask. Oh, so NOW you like ADA... NOW you like the other laws. Come on. You can't have it both ways.

DONNA
Any more questions?

50:33
BRIAN
One final one.... what brings you joy?

GARRETT
First is definitely my dog. I'm spending more time with her and we are really bonding. Next is my garden. I've had my garden for many years, so I'd go out and about and then come home and water and take care of it. I never got the opportunity to really enjoy it. Now, I'm out there most of the day every day seeing all the beautiful flowers and taking it all in for the first time ever. I feel like all of that time and investment into it is now finally paying off.

BRIAN
That awesome! Donna?

51:44
DONNA
Any last-minute thoughts? Anything you want to make sure and talk about before we close?

GARRETT
Let's see... just if you haven't yet, I hope our viewers tonight will check out Deaf Broadway. We have a website.... www.deafbroadway.com . It's just a small website but check it out! And hopefully we will have more shows coming out very soon!

DONNA
Me too! We will be watching! We appreciate your time. We appreciate your work. And we really appreciate your point of view. Thank you so much!

GARRETT
Thank you!

BRIAN
Thanks so much! It was great seeing you! I could sit and watch your stories all day.