Willy Conley is a professor of Theatre Arts in the Department of Art, Communication and Theatre at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Conley is an award-winning playwright whose work has appeared in American Theatre, Theatre for Young Audiences Today, and several anthologies. He has two books of plays, Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays and Broken Spokes. His plays have had professional productions both nationally and internationally at venues that include the Kennedy Center, the Boston Center for the Arts, ARBOS, CenterStage, and the National Theatre of the Deaf. He has garnered awards from the VSA Playwrights Discovery Competition, The American Deaf Drama Festival, the Laurent Clerc Cultural Fund, and is the recipient of a PEW/National Theatre Artist Residency grant.
Told through a series of quirky, irreverent short stories and letters home during the early 1980s, The Deaf Heart chronicles a year in the life of Dempsey “Max” McCall, a Deaf biomedical photography resident at a teaching hospital on the island of Galveston, Texas. Max strives to become certified as a Registered Biological Photographer while straddling the deaf and hearing worlds. He befriends Reynaldo, an impoverished Deaf Mexican, and they go on a number of unusual escapades around the island. At the hospital, Max has to contend with hearing doctors, nurses, scientists, and teachers. While struggling through the rigors of his residency and running into bad luck in meeting women, Max discovers an ally in his hearing housemate Zag, a fellow resident who is also vying for certification. Toward the end of his residency, Max meets Maddy, a Deaf woman who helps bring balance to his life. Author Willy Conley’s stories, some humorous, some poignant, reveal Max’s struggles and triumphs as he attempts to succeed in the hearing world while at the same time navigating the multicultural and linguistic diversity within the Deaf world.
Questions? Please contact: asl@naz.edu.