American Sign Language
In 2014, Christopher accompanied a day of auditions for Deaf West's new adaptation of Spring Awakening (which later transferred to Broadway). This introduced him to the world of Deaf talent, Deaf culture, and American Sign Language. He was motivated to start learning ASL. What began as watching a few YouTube videos eventually became graduating with an associate's degree in ASL Interpreting only a few years later. Christopher has had the good fortune of meeting and working with several members of the Deaf community, including serving as Associate Music Director for Deaf West's 2024 production of American Idiot at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. As a linguistics enthusiast, he continues to develop his signing skills and study the language. Currently, he is working on developing a lexicon of ASL music vocabulary in collaboration with Deaf teachers and artists.
Caveat: Christopher is not Deaf nor is he an ASL instructor. He should not be used as a model for ASL or a representative for the Deaf community. Anyone who wishes to learn ASL or connect with Deaf people should go directly to members of that community. Below are some resources to get started.