Hearing playwright (with Deaf playwright Lewis Merkin) of the play “Language of One.”

Writer, director and filmmaker Drew Emery has created a significant body of community-centered work while living in Seattle for the past 17 years. After receiving his MFA in playwriting from the University of Virginia and winning the Virginia Playwriting Prize and the Howard Scammon Drama Prize, Drew moved to Seattle and began working with Alice B. Theatre, a gay & lesbian theatre for all people.

In addition to co-directing the nation’s first national lesbian and gay theatre conference, Drew collaborated with various artists to create Hidden History: True Stories from Seattle’s Lesbian & Gay Elders and Language of One, the personal odyssey of a deaf gay man.

Language of One went on to a successful Equity showcase production at New York Deaf Theatre, which Drew directed, and a run at the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival, produced by Australian Theatre of the Deaf. Other theatrical work includes Solo for Four, a short performance poem for queer youth and contributions to Voices of Christmas at the late great Group Theatre. In 2004, Drew collaborated with Eric Lane Barnes on the book for The Stops, a new musical that premiered in Seattle at The Empty Space Theatre and produced by DramaQueen.

After receiving a Seattle Arts Commission Seattle Artists Award in 1998, Drew broadened his artistic work to include fiction and poetry. But it is his foundation in oral history storytelling that has led him on a path of documentary filmmaking.

In 2000, Drew received a City of Seattle ArtsUp community collaboration grant to partner with the Seattle LGBT Community Center and create The Bridge, a video documentary built around a virtual dialogue between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender elders and queer youth. The culmination of a two-year process that involved significant community outreach, workshops and, ultimately, 45 one-on-one on-camera interviews, The Bridge was made with a single mini-DV camera and a laptop. Premiering in November 2002 at The Broadway Performance Hall, The Bridge was created to address a generational divide within the LGBT communities but ultimately became a film about growing up and growing old. By unleashing the power of first-hand stories from everyday storytellers, this project became a springboard for the creation of the True Stories Project and the development of Inlaws & Outlaws.

After Inlaws & Outlaws premiered to sold-out houses at the Seattle International Film Festival, Drew was chosen as a runner-up for Best Director. The film has since gone on to win the Grand Jury Award at the deadCENTER Film Festival, Best Local Film at the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival and Best of Fest at the Palm Springs Film Festival.

Plays

Language of One: Background

The play is an ensemble piece for four men and five women. To make the play fully bilingual, voicing and signing characters double for each other in a technique we call “shadowing.” Most importantly, both Albert’s and Peter’s characters have a double, a shadow who provides not just translation but also serves as the “inner voice” of each character. These two characters, the shadows, are played by women.

Important: Unless indicated, all dialogue is both signed and voiced. When we use brackets [like this] to indicate when something is signed only or we indicate “voiced only,” we mean that the character whose dialogue it is either signs or voices only—but their shadow still provides the appropriate interpretation for the audience’s sake.

An earlier version of this play, Language of Love, was originally commissioned by Alice B. Theatre of Seattle and received a workshop production in April 1993 with Howie Seago directing. The play, retitled Language of One, was further developed by New York Deaf Theater with a two-week production at the Vineyard Theatre in August 1995 with Drew Emery directing. Since then, the play was adapted for Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and presented by Australian Theatre of the Deaf in a limited run at the Sydney Mardi Gras in February 1999 with Julia Cotton directing.

Language of One: Reviews

In Sydney, Australia

“This was one of the best nights at theatre I have had for a long while.  I was entertained, moved and enlightened.  The script is particularly strong . . . best of all, it disavows neat resolutions or happy endings. As a very well-constructed and effective bilingual production, it is a rare good thing. Language of One was equal to a main-stage production at Sydney Theatre Company or Company B.”  Portia Adamsons, Australia Council of the Arts.

“A groundbreaking play,” Sydney Daily Telegraph

“An impressive offering . . . an interesting, witty American play – and a small triumph.” RealTime

“Recommended as a ‘don’t miss'” QStage Review

“A glorious piece . . . a gem.  Powerful, brutally honest, hauntingly beautiful,” Campaign Magazine

“It brings a freshness, clarity and a shot of faith to complex issues,” Sydney Morning Herald.

In New York

“Earnest, thoughtful work . . . directed with polish by Mr. Emery.”
—Ben Brantley, The New York Times

“Smart, thought-provoking and accessible to both deaf and hearing viewers.”—The New Yorker

“Do not read another word of this review.  Pick up the phone and make a reservation with The New York Deaf Theatre for their astonishing, magical production of Drew Emery and Lewis Merkin’s forceful play, Language of One . . . The deftness with which Emery and Merkin weave multiple conceits and characters into and around each other is amazing, particularly given that the play is simultaneously performed in English and ASL in an utterly fluid, seamless fashion . . . I defy anyone to attend this play and not be moved by the sagacity of its text, the inventiveness of Emery’s staging or the grace of it’s cast.” —Mark J. Huisman, LGNY (Lesbian Gay New York)

“A remarkably moving play” —Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Magazine

“Language of One is a small treasure—an object lesson in the quality of deaf theatre, a further proof of how artless language can carry the most heartfelt and complex emotions, and last, but not least, a marvel in performance . . .”  —Aaron Schloff, The Jewish Week

“A moving drama . . . refreshing and welcome . . . gracefully and appealingly mounted.”
—L.C. Cole, The New York Native

“New York Deaf Theatre’s humorous, irreverent boy-meets-boy play by Drew Emery and Lewis Merkin forges a language of it’s own.  But this isn’t merely a hearing play interpreted for the deaf—it’s about being deaf in a hearing world.” —The Village Voice

In Seattle

“The Best New Play of 1993” —David-Edward Hughes, Seattle Twist Weekly

“I laughed, I cried, I applauded bilingually.  It’s a rich evening that will drag hearing people toward . . . no longer thinking of the deaf as handicapped.” —Doug VanDerhoof, Seattle Weekly

“Alice B. Theatre has toed the line of genius in their newest presentation.”  —Seattle Gay News