Belfast’s c21 Theatre Company has revealed the details of its first visit to the Keegan Theatre in Washington DC in May when it will present the American première of Charis McRoberts’s Expecting.
First seen in Belfast’s The Mac in May 2023 and subsequently at the Edinburgh Fringe, Expecting is a portrait of a young couple—deaf mother Shauna and hearing father Robbie—anticipating the birth of their first child.
The revival will see the original cast—Eoghan Lamb and Paula Clarke, herself profoundly deaf and involved in the play’s early development—reunited, with Fergus Wachala-Kelly’s projected animations and Graeme Roger’s video design featured, and c21 creative director Stephen Kelly again at the production’s helm.
It is the latest Northern Irish production to find its way to the United States. Big Telly’s Frankenstein’s Monster is Drunk and the Sheep Have All Jumped the Fences and the Lyric, Belfast’s Good Vibrations were seen in New York in 2023, and the Lyric’s acclaimed staging of Owen McCafferty’s Agreement will open in the city’s Irish Arts Center in April.
While in Washington, c21 will also collaborate with Gallaudet University’s theatre and dance department, one of the foremost programmes in the country for deaf and hard of hearing students interested in the performing arts.
Kelly remarked, “we are very happy to be forming this very positive relationship with the Keegan Theatre. It is essential to keep accessibility within the arts at the forefront of what we do, and we continue to strive to improve access and break down barriers together. Interacting with the d/Deaf community has been an integral part of this journey and long may it last”.
He added, “alongside our partnership with the Keegan Theatre, working with Gallaudet will give us a unique opportunity to develop relationships with high profile partners on an international stage. We are very grateful to Culture Ireland, Sign Language Partnership Group in Belfast and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland who have all helped us on this journey to date".
The Washington venue’s artistic director Susan Marie Rhea said, “Keegan has long been a champion of Irish works, new works and plays that forge connection and remind us of our shared humanity. Expecting represents all these facets of theatre making, and the fact that this show is presented for, representative of, and accessible to both hearing and deaf audiences makes it an even more exciting piece of theatre for Keegan to be a part of”.
Expecting opens on May 16 and runs until May 25.