Once again, the voices of the original Broadway cast of “Rent” rang out from a New York stage — this time at Lincoln Center. But as Idina Menzel sang “Over the Moon,” Sandra Mae Frank performed it in American Sign Language, while the words to the song appeared as captions on two of the three screens behind her, hopping and bopping around as if the lyrics were alive, climaxing with a burst of multiple “Mooooooooooos.” 

Frank was one of the dozen Deaf cast members performing Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” last night, , a one-night-only  experience that was both eye-opening and literally buzzing (I’ll explain that in a minute.) “Rent” was the ninth ASL production of a Broadway musical  by Deaf Broadway in the four years since the all-Deaf  theater company was founded – on (as they like to point out) Stephen Sondheim’s 90^th birthday.  

Sondheim features heavily in their repertory,  most recently “Company” last summer at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, where the Deaf cast performed in front of the filmed version of Lincoln Center’s live 2011 production of the musical starring Neil Patrick Harris and Patti LuPone. 

Last night, a cast performed “Rent” while the 1996 original Broadway cast recording of the Tony and Pulitzer winning musical was piped over the speakers at the Rose Theater, as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series.

“We elect not to use live singers,” Deaf Broadway’s artistic director Garrett Zuercher explains in a program note. “By utilizing the original cast album and the voices you already know and love, layering our show on top of this pre-established audio element, we allow hearing audience members to let go of what they hear and shift the focus to what they see.”

Also, for a select number of audience members, what their body feels. A company called Not Impossible Labs made available a limited number of haptic suits. These consist of a vest, and attachments for both feet and both wrists, that emit vibrations in sync with the music. The company developed this technology a decade ago; it is only recently being used for musical theater. I tried it out, and for some reason got the biggest buzz — the most intense vibrations, across my back — during the Anthony Rapp/Fredi Walker duet “Tango: Maureen” (performed on the Lincoln Center stage by James Caverly and Kailyn Aaron-Lozano)

To borrow from “A Chorus Line,” attending this “Rent” was a singular sensation…in multiple ways

The focus, as the director had promised, was on the visual. 

This included captions designed by Stewart Caswell to be their own art form, a poetry of font and placement

Much thought clearly went into the sign language, which was performed by a cast that included four Broadway veterans, and several regulars and several familiar faces on TV. When Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega et al from the original cast sang “La Vie Boheme,” James Caverly as Mark, John McGinty as Roger, Anjel Piñero as Mimi and the other performers each first swept up their hands on their chests, then thrust a fist in the air. These looked to me as the signs in ASL for “happy” and protest.” But they were an artistic translation — by the show’s director of artistic sign language, Aaron-Lozano — for the French phrase that is both the refrain and the title of the song (which is usually translated into English as “the Bohemian life.”)

But one need not have known any ASL at all to be stirred. At the top of the second Act, when the original Broadway ensemble sang “Seasons of Love,” this new ensemble signed

Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes

Rapidly ticking their index fingers at us, which is the sign for “minutes” but could easily be read as making point. 

And then while hearing:

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?

the audience sees the hug, which is “love,” which felt universal, and unspeakably moving.

Jonathan Larson’s Rent by Deaf Broadway
Photos by Lawrence Sumulong and Jonathan Mandell

Here’s a video of the cast performing “Seasons of Love” before the concert. (The live version differed somewhat.)