Michael Arden

Looking back now, what patterns did you see in the characters you were being asked to inhabit when you were acting?

I mean, I think what you said there, people who are sort of like, not to quote Dear Evan Hansen, but on the outside looking in and feeling that they didn't belong within.

And I think maybe the thread there is that the world put that on these characters, but also they put that on themselves.

Yeah.

So the obstacle through line for a lot of these has been like one has to love themselves before anyone else can love them.

So maybe that's been a bit of a through line in some of the characters I've been so lucky to play.

Around 2014, DJ Kurz, the Deaf West artistic director, approached you about directing for Deaf West.

And you and Andy Mientus decided to work reviving the musical Spring Awakening.

What made you decide to choose that play?

Well, Deaf West had said, is there something you would like to do with us?

And it was really Andy's idea.

I'll fully credit him with that, who is also my husband, just to say.

He wasn't at the time, but he became my husband legally shortly after that.

We've been married for 10 years.

He said, oh, this is really interesting because it is about what happens when people do not communicate.

When a mother doesn't communicate with her daughter legally,

the realities of womanhood and sex.

And when there is a breakdown in communication between the family members and the society and people within it.

And so then I started doing research about what was happening in deaf history in the late 1890s.

And there was this thing called the Milan Conference that occurred, which was an international meeting of deaf educators.