So we had a hurricane here. We don’t usually get hurricanes - we’re too far inland, we’re too far north - but we sure got smacked by Isabel. Fortunately, I went to New York for the weekend instead! I avoided the power outage, the phone outage, and the unclean drinking water.

On Sunday, I went to see the last Broadway performance of Big River, a co-production of Roundabout Theatre and Deaf West Theatre. (This is my second Broadway show - I saw Chicago in December.) I was hanging around outside the theater before the show, and I kept staring at a woman who looked really familiar. I was 70% sure she was Deanne Bray, a deaf actress who stars on the PaxTV show Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye. I couldn’t decide if I was right, though, so I just kept watching from afar. She was maybe seven rows in front of me in the orchestra, and I finally caught a facial expression that confirmed she was who I thought she was! She wasn’t made up the way she is on TV, and her hair was different, and she was dressed more casually, but it was Deanne Bray. My friends from my interpreting classes got there shortly before the show started.

I was immediately enthralled when the show began. The main character, Huck Finn, was played by Tyrone Giordano and voiced by Dan Jenkins, who had played Huck in the original 1985 production of Big River. The connection between the two was seamless - I completely forgot that the voice wasn’t coming from the actor onstage but rather from his counterpart off to the side. All of the songs and acting were just beautiful, and the signs from the hearing actors were quite good - Michael Arden in particular. At the intermission I checked my program and read the mini-bio of Troy Kotsur, and immediately realized I recognized him from an episode of “Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye” where he’d played a deaf criminal. He’s Deanne Bray’s husband - no wonder she was there! As the play continued, I found myself quite moved by the voice of Michael McElroy, who played Jim. I realized that this styling of Big River is best enjoyed by people like me: hearing people who are fluent in ASL. Deaf people miss out on the powerful voices, and hearing non-signers miss out on much of the quality of the deaf actors’ performances.

When the show ended, Deanne Bray made it out to the aisle before I did. I flagged her down and blurted out “I just wanted to tell you I love your show!” She said “Oh, thank you! Do you want to meet my husband? He’s going to be in the lobby in a few minutes.” So I immediately went out into the aisle and followed her to the lobby, where a small circle of women had gathered to wait with her. He didn’t show up immediately so we all chatted for a while, about her and her TV show, and about the show we’d all just seen. I borrowed a pen and had her autograph my Playbill - she signed it next to her husband’s picture, since there wasn’t really anywhere else to put anything. She wrote “Best wishes and God bless ♥ Deanne Bray” for me. When her husband finally came out, he signed his name rather large on the front cover of the Playbill. (I was rather disappointed that there were no t-shirts or programs for sale - no memorabilia at all! I’d have bought something if they’d had anything.) My friends from school wanted to wait longer to talk to Ty Giordano, but I was ready to go after I got Troy Kotsur’s signature. I stopped by the Hello Kitty store too, (two doors down from the theater) but didn’t buy anything.

Of course I’ve had all the show’s songs in my head since I saw it - I found the lyrics online and put the CD on my Amazon.com wishlist.