* This anthology has been curated by a seasoned playwright, academic, director and actor who has lived experience of being deaf. * Would be recommended reading in deaf studies and deaf culture courses across the world. * This book is the first anthology of its kind.

* This anthology has been curated by a seasoned playwright, academic, director and actor who has lived experience of being deaf. * Would be recommended reading in deaf studies and deaf culture courses across the world. * This book is the first anthology of its kind.

Visual-Gestural Communication is a truly unique volume in non-language communication devoted to the study of universal gestures, facial expressions, body language, and pantomime. Readers develop the skill and confidence to interact -- sans shared language -- with individuals, such as someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, or who speaks a foreign language. The text and accompanying online resources feature a wealth of icebreakers, sequenced yet modular activities and assignments, as well as resources, student exercises, and teacher-guided tasks that explore aspects and amalgamations of nonverbal communication, theatre, and sign language. It is a tremendous resource for students of visual-gestural communication, sign language interpretation, American Sign Language (and other foreign sign languages), nonverbal communication, theatre, and performance studies, as well as community educators in deaf awareness and advocacy. In addition to the text's vital use in the theatrical arena, it is also applicable to teachers who wish to help their students maximize the use of their facial expressions, gestures, and body language as a prerequisite to learning ASL.

Visual-Gestural Communication is a truly unique volume in non-language communication devoted to the study of universal gestures, facial expressions, body language, and pantomime. Readers develop the skill and confidence to interact -- sans shared language -- with individuals, such as someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, or who speaks a foreign language. The text and accompanying online resources feature a wealth of icebreakers, sequenced yet modular activities and assignments, as well as resources, student exercises, and teacher-guided tasks that explore aspects and amalgamations of nonverbal communication, theatre, and sign language. It is a tremendous resource for students of visual-gestural communication, sign language interpretation, American Sign Language (and other foreign sign languages), nonverbal communication, theatre, and performance studies, as well as community educators in deaf awareness and advocacy. In addition to the text's vital use in the theatrical arena, it is also applicable to teachers who wish to help their students maximize the use of their facial expressions, gestures, and body language as a prerequisite to learning ASL.

Told through a series of quirky, irreverent short stories and letters home during the early 1980s, The Deaf Heart chronicles a year in the life of Dempsey "Max" McCall, a Deaf biomedical photography resident at a teaching hospital on the island of Galveston, Texas. Max strives to become certified as a Registered Biological Photographer while straddling the deaf and hearing worlds. He befriends Reynaldo, an impoverished Deaf Mexican, and they go on a number of unusual escapades around the island. At the hospital, Max has to contend with hearing doctors, nurses, scientists, and teachers. While struggling through the rigors of his residency and running into bad luck in meeting women, Max discovers an ally in his hearing housemate Zag, a fellow resident who is also vying for certification. Toward the end of his residency, Max meets Maddy, a Deaf woman who helps bring balance to his life. Author Willy Conley's stories, some humorous, some poignant, reveal Max's struggles and triumphs as he attempts to succeed in the hearing world while at the same time navigating the multicultural and linguistic diversity within the Deaf world.

After spending three years in The National Theatre of the Deaf performing plays by hearing authors featuring hearing characters, Willy Conley realized that he wanted to write plays with deaf, hard-of- hearing, and hearing characters created from the Deaf perspective. "Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays "presents the result of his desire in twelve masterful plays.
"I write for the eye, always searching for live, mobile, provocative images that would fill and illuminate the entire stage space with the complexities, the pathos, and the humor involved when deaf and hearing cultures merge or collide," writes Conley in his introduction. His plays depict a wide range of Deaf characters, including two brothers locked in a tragic rivalry familiar to families of all backgrounds; the broadly comedic Deaf Guide and hearing Techie interspersing laughs with cultural lessons in their Museum of Signs for People with Communication Disorders; Everyone searching for her Good Deeds as she faces imminent Death in an updating of the classic morality play, plus many others. These works explore a broad palette of circumstances with and without hearing characters, allowing Deaf characters to interact minus the direct influence that the dominant culture might exert." Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays" presents the drama and passion of a master playwright who, through his perceptions, reveals facets of the Deaf character in all of us.