A Child’s Christmas In Wales

Actors’ Reading Collective, December 2021

Kyra
Says .... ....

I was blown away by the beauty of seeing this alternate theatrical setting. I learned so much about American Sign Language and the way that sentence structure is broken down. Because ASL will often take more time to complete than the spoken word, there was a beauty in asking the hearing audience to wait for the signing to finish through the end of the beat. Companies like ARC are an honor to work with.
streaming producer, leanna keyes smiling inside a green bordered circle

Leanna
Says .... ....

What a delightful flip on the conventional theater formula for a piece to be performed in ASL and then interpreted for the hearing audience’s benefit by a cast of talented actors. This performance came together incredibly quickly and we had to come up with ways to ‘sync’ this multilingual company on the fly. It’s a privilege to work with a company like ARC.

A Child’s Christmas In Wales

An adapted poem performed in ASL with spoken English interpretation, the most performers Transcend Streaming had featured to date.

A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

Adapted & Directed by Amy Kossow, Susan Lynskey, & Leontyne Mbele-Mbong

Based on the prose of poet Dylan Thomas and adapted by San Francisco Bay Area theatre artists Amy Kossow, Susan Lynskey, and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, A Child’s Christmas in Wales tells the story of a young boy’s Christmas Eve, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time that children of all ages can relate to. Travel through memories of Christmases past as adult Dylan Thomas tells humorous stories of presents, happenings, and the act of falling asleep on Christmas Eve. The performance was performed in American Sign Language with spoken English interpretation.

Actors’ Reading Collective’s mission is to share the artistic, spiritual, and emotional passion uniquely inherent to theater and storytelling. ARC is actor-inspired, -shaped, and -driven: a collective molded by mutual efforts and member input. They are deeply committed to changing the way BIPOC members are cast, and practicing gender and age inclusion in an attempt to move mutual humanity forward, to listen to what is needed, and what is lacking. They challenge themselves to change. Their goal is to help support their members, many of whom have been severely impacted by the Covid-19 Pandemic with loss of jobs, funds, and health insurance, through this crisis and beyond. Through their streaming channel, they seek to reach a larger audience for readings and to present some of it for local theaters and arts organizations, thereby creating opportunity, and providing a space for collaboration and potential. https://www.arcstream.org

A Child’s Christmas In Wales featured the following performers:

Mary Baird*, Anne Hallinan, Amy Kossow*, Catherine Luedtke*, Ayisha Knight-Shaw, Susan Lynskey*, Dena Martinez*, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong*, Carolina Morones, Lisa Morse*, Robert Parsons*, Scott Ragle*, Timothy Roy Redmond*, David Sinaiko*, Mia Tagano*, Emilie Talbot*, Danielle Thys*, Michael Torres*, Ansley Valentine*, Valerie Weak*, Aaron Wilton*