Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

268 Chapter 10 Global Theatre Today
Larry Kramer’s 1985 off-Broadway
production of The Normal Heart was
instrumental in making the American
public, and then the government,
far more responsive to the AIDS
crisis than it had been. The play’s
2011 revival, on Broadway this time,
won three Tony Awards. Shown
are Joe Mantello (left) as Ned
Weeks, an AIDS activist, and John
Benjamin Hickey as Felix, Ned’s love
interest. Looming behind them are
the names of the dead and dying.
George C. Wolfe and Joel Grey
codirected the production; Kramer,
whose activism on this issue has
never slowed, was out front after
most performances, handing out
blistering letters to exiting audience
members so as “to get the word
out, again.” © Joan Marcus
Deaf West is a Los Angeles theatre for the hearing-impaired, and its production of the musical Big River, in which
characters alternately speak, sing, and sign their roles, began on the company’s tiny home stage. From there it moved
to the much larger Mark Taper Forum and then to Broadway, winning critical acclaim not merely for overcoming its
“handicapped” label but for creating an altogether new theatre aesthetic of hearing and “seeing” musical drama at the
same time. Tyrone Giordano (left) plays Huckleberry Finn, with Michael McElroy as Jim, at the American Airlines Theater
in 2003. © Sara Krulwich/The New York Times/Redux