A SHOW OF HANDS: A Celebration of Deaf Theatre, presented by VSA arts of Massachusetts and Boston's Show of Hands Theatre Company (SOHTC), will be a three-day event held November 17-19, 2005, showcasing distinguished American Deaf theatre artists. With award-winning Phyllis Frelich as Guest Presenter, performers include Bernard Bragg, Terrylene, Peter Cook, CJ Jones, Rosa Lee Gallimore, The Wings Company, and The Con (Howie Seago and Nat Wilson). The performers will interact with Deaf and hearing children and adults through American Sign Language performances, workshops and panel discussions.

The Festival will be held at ACT Roxbury's newly renovated Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square near Northeastern University. Need more details? Feel free to e-mail us at info@deaftheatre.com. We look forward to seeing you in November!

Bonnie S. Kaplan & Janis Cole, Festival Co-Chairs

About VSA Mass: The mission guiding VSA arts of Massachusetts is to serve individuals with disabilities by creating opportunities for participation in the arts and integration into the cultural and educational mainstream of our communities. Through collaborative and proactive advocacy, VSA arts of Massachusetts helps people with and without disabilities make systemic change influencing the quality and accessibility of cultural and educational resources throughout the state and across the nation. VSA arts of Massachusetts represents part of an international network of VSA arts organizations serving all 50 states and nearly 100 other nations. VSA arts was founded in 1974 by Jean Kennedy Smith and remains an affiliate of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.vsamass.org.

About Show of Hands Theatre Company (SOHTC): The Massachusetts Deaf Community has a long Deaf Theatre history. This theatre company was established in the summer of 2002 to preserve and showcase our evolved visual theatre techniques. Our mission is to showcase Deaf Culture and American Sign Language (ASL) by creating new theatre works and adapting existing works into ASL that spotlight Deaf Community's language, literature, and diversity.

About the Collaboration between VSA Mass and SOHTC:

SOHTC, with DEAF Inc. acting as fiscal agent, has been growing slowly and surely with generous financial support and guidance from VSA Arts of Massachusetts despite drastic cuts in arts and access funding. Since SOHTC's inception one hot summer day three years ago at a local Boston library, this passionate Boston Deaf Community theatre group has:

• Created its mission statement and guidelines

• Facilitated summer theatre trainings

• Coordinated a fundraising event associated with the Deaf West production of "Big River," at The Wang Center for the Performing Arts

• Produced the original work "Light," a Deaf historical fiction about Boston's Revere Beach in 1940s at Northeastern University's ASL Festival

• Co-produced "Hello Sistah, Welcome Home," the spiritual journey of one Deaf woman's struggles and self-discovery, and a celebration of multiculturalism.

Currently, in collaboration with VSA Arts of Massachusetts, SOHTC is proud to host this festival. It is our sincere hope that as a result of the festival, the general public will come to realize, understand, and appreciate the significant cultural contributions to mainstream society made by Deaf people and experienced most powerfully through ASL. The SOHTC board wishes to thank VSA Arts of Massachusetts for its steadfast belief in and undying support for a budding local ASL community theatre in Boston that we can call our own.