Open Call: Director of Artistic Sign Language (DASL) - Open Circle Theatre

Open Circle Theatre
Washington, DC Metro Area - Blackrock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD
May 4–15
Weekdays, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (no weekend rehearsals)
Pay: $4000

Submission Form

Open Circle Theatre is seeking a Director of Artistic Sign Language (DASL) for a two-week workshop of a new musical, VitaNova, featuring an integrated Deaf and hearing cast.

VitaNova is a new musical exploring connection, identity, and community across physical and digital worlds. The piece unfolds simultaneously in live performance and online space, using branching narrative structures and integrated technology to invite audiences into a shared, interactive experience. At its core, VitaNova centers disability perspectives and seeks to expand how stories are told—creating a form that is inherently accessible, collaborative, and grounded in multiple ways of experiencing the world.

This production integrates American Sign Language into the storytelling and staging of the piece, with the goal of creating a unified theatrical experience that is accessible and meaningful for Deaf and hearing audiences alike. ASL is not treated as an add-on, but as a core visual and linguistic element developed through the workshop process.

The DASL will be a vital artistic collaborator, working primarily alongside the Live Theatre Director (who has extensive experience integrating ASL into the aesthetic and storytelling of a production), playwright, dramaturgs, and accessibility director to shape how ASL functions within the dramaturgy, structure, and visual language of the piece.   This includes contributing to how language is created, adapted, and embodied across both signed and spoken forms.

Responsibilities include:

• Collaborating with the director, playwright, dramaturgs, and accessibility director as ASL is developed within the workshop process

• Helping shape how ASL functions as a storytelling language within the staging and overall theatrical experience

• Translating and adapting text into ASL for performance, where appropriate

• Supporting the development of an ASL script alongside the rehearsal process

• Coaching Deaf and hearing actors in language use, expression, and visual communication

• Collaborating with the creative team on staging, timing, audience attention, and visual clarity

• Bringing a dramaturgical perspective to ASL, including how visual language shapes meaning, pacing, and relationships in performance

• Collaborating with the digital director and director of photography to ensure ASL is visually clear and readable for both in-person and online audiences, including considerations of framing, scale, and audience attention

We are particularly interested in artists who bring Deaf cultural and artistic perspectives into the creative process.

Rehearsal interpreters will be provided.

Qualifications:
Fluent in American Sign Language
Experience working with both Deaf and hearing actors
Experience in theatrical settings (preferred)
Experience with ASL in film, digital, or multimedia environments (a plus)