Storytelling without the use of dialogue is a time-honored tradition. From art books to dance performances, there have always been ways to tell stories without a single spoken word. According to the article “Louder than Words: A History of Wordless Storytelling,” written by David Wiesner for the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, nonverbal storytelling has been a staple of children’s books since the 1960s, but its history can be traced all the way back to cave painting.
But the examples in Wiesner’s article highlight visual art. What about wordless storytelling in the performing arts?
Imagination Stage’s latest production, “Paper Dreams,” is one such nonverbal play. Intended to reach very young audiences who may not have developed language skills yet, the production contains no dialogue, with its story communicated through choreography, emotional performances and the use of props, both by the actors onstage and by members of the audience.
While these productions are primarily intended for very young audiences, their presentation style makes them accessible across language barriers, and for children who are deaf or hard of hearing as well.
“Doing theater for children who are nonverbal or not yet verbal is sort of a fascinating idea,” says Kathryn Chase Bryer, Imagination Stage’s director of theater. “They still have thoughts, and feelings, and all of those things, just at a different level. They process information about the world through sensory input, so nonverbal theater is about telling stories through sensory techniques.”
Imagination Stage is a children’s theater company with a 45-year history of making theater accessible, and often free, to children and teenagers in Bethesda, Maryland, and beyond.
Part of that mission of accessibility includes putting on performances that surpass barriers of age and ability.
The company first started doing nonverbal plays after Bryer and former artistic director Janet Stanford attended a children’s theater festival in Europe in 2010, where they were introduced to the idea. Even today, many of Imagination Stage’s nonverbal productions were created by European theater companies. “Paper Dreams,” specifically, was created through a collaboration between Imagination Stage and the Barcelona-based Mons Dansa Dance Company.
Not all of the productions that Imagination Stage puts on for very young audiences are nonverbal, but many of them utilize very little dialogue, with some only having one or two words in their entire script. Instead, their stories are communicated through other means.
“We rely on physical expression. That’s one way to tell the story and express the emotion or action of what’s happening,” Bryer explains. “We also want [the audience] to be physically involved, because using kinesthetic motor skills is part of enjoying this kind of theater. They’re actually given props, sometimes during the show, and asked to use them. They’re sometimes asked to actually come up on stage with the actors and interact with them.”
“Paper Dreams” incorporates papercraft, with children led through the process of crafting paper birds and flowers from their seats.
Part of what makes nonverbal theater so enjoyable for young audiences is the fact that it’s accessible to everyone. Regardless of language comprehension skills, hearing ability or language spoken at home, these simple stories are easy to understand and to stay engaged with.
This kind of accessibility has always been important to Imagination Stage, whose mission includes making theater available to all children. The theater company hosts workshops for children who may not have performing arts education at their own schools, provides American Sign Language interpretation for productions with dialogue and is currently looking into incorporating more bilingual and Spanish plays. Nonverbal shows like “Paper Dreams” surpass that language barrier.
“This kind of theater is great for universal language,” Bryer says. “Because it’s nonverbal, those small children are able to process the information much easier. They’re not confused by it, and they’re not disengaged by it. They’re very engaged in the action that’s happening.”
One of the people at Imagination Stage who helps to make the company’s productions more inclusive is Shanna Sorrells, the company’s senior manager of access and inclusion. Sorrells is deaf and an alum of Imagination Stage’s Deaf Access program, which brings together young deaf and hard-of-hearing actors with hearing actors to put on shows that are spoken and signed simultaneously.
“Nonverbal productions like ‘Paper Dreams’ are accessible for children who are deaf/hard of hearing because they can watch a show that is unfolding in front of them without having to watch other people interpret the content they are watching into a second language,” Sorrells explains. “[This] can interfere greatly with enjoyment of theater when attention has to be split between what is happening on stage and accessing the content in a language that is not accessible.”
This means that there is no barrier to entry for children with hearing-related disabilities when they experience a nonverbal play, as they can understand it and enjoy it without the need for accessibility tools like subtitles or ASL interpretation.
“I know exactly what it feels like to enter a space that feels like it was designed for only able-bodied people in mind, ignoring the wide diverse tapestry that is our humanity,” she adds. “Theater ought to be a mirror that reflects society, and oftentimes, many people are forgotten and/or aren’t given the opportunity to have their voices elevated and heard.”
