IRT Westside Experiment

August 23 2025

ASL Creative | Westside Experiment

Tickets 

IN RESIDENCE: August 11 – 23, 2025

A family game night takes an unexpected turn when a college-aged sibling returns home, interrupting a heated round of Monopoly and convincing everyone to dive into the fantastical world of Dungeons & Dragons. Together, the family embarks on a quest filled with dragons, werewolves, and banshees, navigating battles, losses, and even a comically misplaced pizza delivery that blurs the line between the real and imagined worlds. What begins as a simple board game squabble quickly transforms into a chaotic, funny, and heartfelt adventure about family, imagination, and the surprising places games can take us.

PERFORMANCE:Sat. August 23, 2025
TIME: 11am
PRICE: Pay-What-You-Can
At IRT: 154 Christopher st. NYC #3B (third floor)
ADA Accessible
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Featuring: Aidan Williams, Alona Robbins, Alton Smith, Ami De Lowe, Bradley Dubow, Daniel Rushton, Gabriel Wotman, Kevin Yue, Lou Riskin, Louis O’Brien, Max Lin, Noa De Lowe, Skyler Dubow

LEAD TEACHING ARTISTS:
Jules Dameron (he/him) is a deaf trans and gay film & theatre director, working with both deaf and hearing actors. Jules graduated from Gallaudet University with a B.A. in TV/Cinema and then obtained an MFA in Film Production/Directing at one of the leading film schools in the world, the University of Southern California. Shifting between both deaf and hearing cultures, Jules has a strong insight into how the deaf community has a different way of sharing information. Mediating between two cultures has helped Jules harness a direction style and vision that is unique and unparalleled.

Recently, Jules has worked on several videos with Sesame Street, helping provide the same experience and amusement to young viewers through a deaf lens. Jules is also currently the writer and director of the soon-to-be-made feature film, Deaf President Now, a film illustrating the events of the Deaf President Now protests at Gallaudet University in 1988. Jules is also co-writing / co-directing a play called, “What is Emily Drawing?” highlighting the effects of language deprivation in deaf children. When not in the director’s chair, Jules extends his talents to the stage playing various roles in notable shows like Romeo and Juliet, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Lés Miserables. Jules aspires to work more with hearing creatives to pave the way for more authentic representation in the media.

Treshelle M. Edmond (she/her)TRESHELLE EDMOND was diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss in both ears when she was around 18 months old. She made her Broadway debut in Deaf West Theater’s Spring Awakening Revival, Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God Revival, and Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girl Revival as an Understudy. ‘The Colored Museum,’ ‘Another Kind of Silence,’ and ‘What Came After’ have all premiered off-Broadway. Also ‘Say It Ain’t So,’ Nikki Brake-Silla, Treshelle created  ‘Light Up Within,’ A One-Woman Show both in New York and Los Angeles. Television/film: House M.D., Glee, Master of None (Season 2); Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. @TreshelleEdmond

Jessica Ranville was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a proud Red River Métis and is an enrolled citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She spent her high school and college years in Québec before moving to New York to pursue an MFA at The New School for Drama.

She has appeared at Baltimore Center Stage, The Pearl Theatre, The New Ohio Theatre, HERE Arts Center, and LaMama, and has contributed to residencies at IRT Theater, Mabou Mines, The Drama League and Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

A trained singer, Jessica plays acoustic guitar and loves any opportunity to work on plays with music and folk musicals.

HONORARY GUEST TEACHERS:

Dickie Hearts is a Deaf, gay, multiracial actor. His TV credits include a recurring role on Netflix’s Tales of the City (2019), a supporting role on HBO’s High Maintenance (2020), and a guest-starring role on Netflix’s Grace & Frankie (2017). Stage credits include his Off-Broadway debut in Dark Disabled Stories (2023) at Public Theater, New York Deaf Theatre’s Maple & Vine, IRT’s Stepchild, Please Untranslate Me, and Trash. Dickie Hearts continues to push for more Deaf, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC visibility and representation onstage and onscreen. Hearts is a Disability Futures Fellowship ‘22 recipient and is repped by Nicolosi & Co. This is his first Lucille Lortel award nomination.

James Caverly was born and raised in Royal Oak, Michigan. He graduated with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Gallaudet University in 2011. Soon after graduation, he joined National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) for two years: he directed The McWilliamses, and performed in several plays, including Journey of Identity (playing the character Laurent Clerc) and A Child’s Christmas in Wales (playing the character Dylan Thomas). Since then, he has directed several plays and performed both stage and screen. He directed William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in both American Sign Language and spoken English for Community College of Baltimore County Community Theatre. He has also performed the lead character, Billy, for three different productions of Nina Raine’s Tribes (SpeakEasy Stage Company, Studio Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre) and was nominated for the Helen Hayes Award (one of the country’s most prestigious cultural honors) for his Studio Theatre performances. In 2018, he was the understudy for the character Orin for the Studio 54 (Broadway) production of Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God. Most recently, he appeared in two episodes of NBC’s Chicago Med (Season 4): in the premiere episode (“Be My Better Half”) (9/27/2018) and the finale episode (“With a Brave Heart”) (5/22/2019). He also wrote a short play, “Civil Engagement,” that was accepted for a 2019 production in Deaf Spotlight’s Short Play Festival (Seattle, Washington). Caverly sees a problem with most portrayals of deaf people on stage and screen: “That they’re the problem, they’re the issue in the story that needs to be fixed, and frankly I’m just not feeling that that’s the lens that the world needs to see.”

Jill and Amnon Damti They are a unique deaf and hearing dancer duo, representing Israel as Ambassadors of Culture and Acceptance. They offered their “Two World” interactive performance and some workshop.

Daniel Irizarry is a Puerto Rican born International Experimental Theatre director, performer and educator based in NYC. His work embraces highly stylized and visceral acting, pataphysics, a profound celebration of GERMS, and communion with the audience through consent. He is the Artistic Director of One-Eighth Theater and Lecturer at MIT Music & Theatre Arts. In his most recent work, he directed and conceptualized ‘Retratos’ with local Chilean and Argentinian actors at Temporales Internacionales de Teatro and Universidad de Los Lagos in Puerto Montt, Chile. This Spring he will direct and perform in the world premiere of “classdismissed.edu” at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre (April, ‘25). Next summer his experimental musical project “My Onliness” will perform in the prestigious Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania (June, ‘25). He is also a Practical Advisor for artist Dominykas Vaitiekūnas’ PhD Thesis at The Doctoral Department at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Other notable credits; Directed and devised “Plum Box—Strange—Ideal and more than…” 10 poems of South Korean artist Yi Sang, created at MIT Music and Theatre Arts in collaboration with Harvard and Berklee College, composed by Professor Woody Pak. Directed & performed in “Ultra Left Violence” written by Robert Lyons, as the final project for the historic closing of 30 years at the New Ohio Theatre. “The Maids” by acclaimed playwright Jose Rivera (New York Times Critics pick); “UBU” by Adam Symkowicz (Time Out NY Critics pick). Directed the world premiere of “Busu” by Mishima at Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival. Directed and performed “YOVO” written by Robert Lyons and produced in NYC, Poland, Cuba and South Korea. Directed and performed “My Onliness” by Robert Lyons at New Ohio Theatre in NYC & selected as one of the best performances Off-Broadway in 2022 by Theatermania. Directed the world premiere of Witkacy’s “The Madman and the Nun” in Ankara, Turkey which toured to Gardzienice International festival in Poland, produced at Pregones Theatre and Bohemian National Hall in NYC.

Over his career he has directed, performed and taught workshops in India, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Italy, Romania, UK, Colombia, among others. As an educator he has most notably taught as a Guest Professor at Folkwang University (Essen, Germany), Visiting Assistant Professor at Bilkent University Performing Arts (Ankara, Turkey) and Assistant Professor in the Acting Department at Seoul Institute of the Arts (Ansan, South Korea). He holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University and a BA in Drama at The Universidad de Puerto Rico.

Interpreters: Liz Carlin, Mark Weissglass, Kat Katona and Kevin Vogel

Producing Artistic Director: Kori Rushton
Executive Assistant: Gabriel Wotman

IRT Theater is a grassroots laboratory for independent theater and performance in New York City, providing space and support to a new generation of artists. Tucked away in the old Archive Building in Greenwich Village,  IRT’s mission is to build a community of emerging and established artists by creating a home for the development and presentation of new work.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council;  A.R.T./New York’s NYC Small Theatres Fund made possible with support from the Howard Gilman Foundation & support for ASL interpretation provided in part through funding from Access A.R.T./New York.

ACCESS: IRT is a fully wheelchair-accessible facility. Please reach out to Kori Rushton if you have any accessibility questions or concerns, krushton@irttheater.org

PLEASE NOTE: All sales final and there is no late seating at IRT Theater.