Steve Vevers-Webb tells us about “Deaf Awakening” and the exciting theatre developments at D-Live! Theatre (BSL)

I’m Steve Vevers-Webb.  I’m an actor, writer, director and theatre-maker.  I run D-Live! Theatre. All our work is led in British Sign Language with spoken English/written English used throughout our productions.

We have two main strands to our work.  One is to make theatre productions that use digital technology, including pre-recorded actors/set/scenery on video and how they can integrate with live actors on stage. 

Our second area of work is running projects with deaf children and young people on developing their literacy and arts skills.  We’ve run projects where deaf children have created a book of their short stories and another where a group of young deaf people made short films to respond to themes that interest them.

We produced “Scrooge!” back at Christmas in 2018 with Daryl Jackson as our leading man.  We then revived it and did an extended tour around the festive period in 2022/2023. 

We had one live actor on stage – Will Lewis – who interacted with a digital set with all other characters pre-recorded on film.   

Other memorable moments include the festive 2019 production of “Frozen Snow Queen”.  This was our most ambitious project to date as we had two live actors on stage – Julian Peedle-Calloo and Naomi Gray.  They were interacting with a range of performers and various characters on film. 

We had Stephen Collins, Fatima Niemogha, Emily Rose-Salter and Will Lewis on screen with spoken voice-overs provided by Jim Fish and Rachael Merry. 

We’re always keen to develop deaf talent behind the scenes too.  Our sets have been designed and created by Christopher Sacre – a visual artist.  Our digital video production work has been created and edited by Andrew Revell.  

We’re very proud to have toured these plays to theatres in London and also further afield. We achieved strong audiences of deaf and hearing people all watching and enjoying these plays together. We’re keen to develop relationships with venues around the UK and bring exciting productions to audiences of deaf and hearing people.  

Our newest production – Deaf Awakening – was my ‘passion project’ for many years.  I interviewed a variety of deaf people about their experiences of being deaf and from these interviews, I created short stories and scenes that provide the deaf perspective on various situations, themes and concepts. 

This play is for anyone to watch and connect with.  We’re presenting these short scenes that shine a light on the deaf experience.  If you’ve seen V’s, “The Vagina Monologues” about the experiences of women, this is our own deaf monologues – about the experience of what it is like to be deaf.

Deaf Awakening is a collection of short scenes, some monologues and some ensemble scenes.  Throughout the play is the experience of deaf people in different situations.  We use language that resonates with the deaf experience and we shine a light on the many layers of deafness.  

I think what makes it so unique is that we haven’t seen a production like this before – where different experiences of deafness are put centre-stage.  We want the audience to be thinking about their own perceptions and views of deafness once they have seen this production.

We have 4 actors in the play, two deaf and two hearing.  We have Stephen Collins, Alex Novak, Anna Kitson and Sean Ashley Cook.   One of our hearing actors is not fluent in BSL.  This was a choice for us to add this layer of authenticity and reflect real-life experiences of deaf people. 

We’re excited to bring this production to deaf and hearing audiences soon and get their feedback.  A future aim would be to tour it even further with a larger cast in future years.

I’m most proud of the creative process that was involved in the making this show.  I had the idea that I wanted to shine a light on the deaf perspective and so interviewed lots of deaf people about their experiences.  Then I analysed them to find common threads and ways to weave the stories together.

I’ve loved creating these stories and am so proud to share them now with audiences.  As a writer, I am always unsure if people will connect with my work, I wonder – will they like it?  I have a lot of insecurities and I really hope people can connect with these stories.

When I first published the script back in 2020 with the BSL videos, it was great to get feedback from people that they connected with this play and the themes.  This gave me the confidence to continue and apply for funding to put this play on stage with a live audience for the very first time. 

I’m excited and nervous to see the reactions from the audiences. I hope deaf audience members will see themselves on stage.  They’ll feel a connection and a resonance with the experiences there.  

I want them to be feel – “yes, that’s happened to me too!” or “yes, I feel that as well!” We know deafness is a very individual experience but there is a common thread that hopefully we’ve been able to capture in this play.  I want hearing audiences to have their very own deaf awakening and understand what deaf people have experienced. 

We’re also developing a brand new digital children’s showcase called – “The Little Prince”, which is an adaptation of the novel. 

This will premiere at the BUP! Festival. This is a family arts festival with BSL at its core being held in Chatham in Kent on the 26th April 2025 (you can book that date in your diaries!)

We’re also running a historical arts project with a group of deaf young people about Martha’s Vineyard.  It was 400 or so years ago that a group of over 100 deaf people moved from Kent to Martha’s Vineyard in the USA. 

It was a place where everyone used sign language and you couldn’t tell who was deaf or hearing.  Our participants are creating art work in response to this story and these will be collated into a book about this historical event. 

Also, we’re creating Big D Volume II which is another project with deaf children. It involves them creating short stories that we will publish as a book.  The idea is to encourage their literacy and storytelling skills. 

As well as this, we’re running a project called Extract Stories that is with deaf young people and showcasing extracts of famous English play texts.  You’ll be able to see a lot of this artwork, books, video clips all at the BUP! Festival in April 2025.  So we have lots going on! 

The tour for Deaf Awakening this Autumn 2024 is limited to only 3 venues as this is just our test run!  Once we have feedback from audiences and venues about the show, our aim is to apply for funding to be able to tour the play to more venues in future years. So – watch this space!

To find out more about D-Live! Theatre see here.