Performing Deaf Identity and Deaf Gain in Michael Arden’s 2015 Spring Awakening

Abstract

This article examines the 2015 revival of Spring Awakening on Broadway by director Michael Arden, which restaged the musical for both a deaf and hearing audience. The performance of Deaf identity in the musical is read through Tobin Siebers’s concept the “disability masquerade,” whereby the “overvisibility” of ASL reclaims Deaf identity, as well as through elements of Deaf Gain, namely the bilingual structure of the musical and what can be learned from the Deaf experience of music. The integration of ASL into the choreography amplifies the kinesthetic quality of the performance and engages the audience physically, producing what Matthew Reason and Dee Reynolds have termed “kinesthetic empathy,” while the bilingual structure accentuates the underlying themes of interpersonal communication. The combination of the affirmative disability masquerade with aspects of Deaf Gain produces a performance that reimagines bilingual access and inclusive aesthetics, and confronts its hearing audience with their own kinesthetic relationship to the world, communication, and music.