MoMo Holt, Malik Paris & Dominykas Vaitiekūnas

November 18 2026

ASL Creative

IN RESIDENCE: November 7 – 18, 2026

An Experimental Theatre Work-in-Progress Inspired by Jean Genet’s The Maids

Artist:
MoMo Holt, Malik Paris (IRT Theater) &
Dominykas Vaitiekūnas (Lithuanian company “Liūdni slibinai”)

Work-in-Progress Showing: November 18, 2026
Location: IRT Theater, 154 Christopher Street, Suite 3B, New York City
Doors Open: 6:30 PM (to be confirmed)
Showing Begins: 7:00 PM
Duration: Approximately 30 minutes
Following the showing, audience members are warmly invited to stay,
share their impressions, and join an open discussion with the artists

Synopsis
In 2025, Deaf theatre artists MoMo Holt and Malik Paris met Lithuanian hearing performing artist Dominykas Vaitiekūnas at a theatre festival in Romania. Their encounter grew into an artistic dialogue and a shared residency at IRT Theater in
New York City.

LET’S DECIDE HOW TO KILL HER explores how Deaf and hearing artists from different linguistic and theatrical backgrounds can create together without placing one language at the center. Grounded in Deaf experience and visual communication, the project asks what these perspectives can offer a shared theatrical practice. Jean Genet’s “The Maids” provides a starting point: two servants imitate their mistress, shifting between submission, rebellion, and fantasies of power. Rather than staging the play, the artists explore its themes of imitation, oppression, and role-playing through Visual Gesture Communication (VGC), physical action, facial expression, movement, and visual dramaturgy. What happens when a hearing actor cannot rely on voice, or when sign language need not translate spoken dialogue? How do performers negotiate meaning through bodies, attention, and play?

Over ten days in November, the artists work without a fixed methodology or predetermined outcome, embracing the vulnerability of experimentation, misunderstanding, and discovery. On November 18, audiences will see what has emerged—not a finished production, but an open sharing of ideas and discoveries. They are invited to stay afterward and contribute their impressions to the ongoing research.

About the Artists
MoMo Holt is a Deaf theatre artist and associate professor at Gallaudet University. Her work in Visual Gesture Communication and Deaf-centered performance treats Deaf ways of communicating and perceiving as creative resources, not adaptations to hearing-centered theatre.

Malik Paris is a Deaf actor and performer bringing Deaf cultural and embodied perspectives to contemporary performance. Here, he explores theatrical vocabulary through visual communication, physical presence, and exchange.

Dominykas Vaitiekūnas is a Lithuanian performing artist and doctoral researcher at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. His research examines Deaf–hearing artistic collaboration and theatre for mixed audiences, including what hearing artists must learn—and unlearn—to work beyond hearing-centered conventions. His work received Lithuania’s Borisas Dauguvietis Earring award for artistic innovation.

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 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. Thank you to IndieSpace, and everyone who supports venues like ours in New York City.

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.