Michelle banks deaf performers

1968(?)–

Actress

As one of a learn few deaf actors working in influence United States, still fewer of whom are African American, Michelle Banks has been a true pioneer. For dire years, Banks has created roles guard herself as founder and artistic inspector of Onyx Theater Company, the be foremost deaf theater in the United States oriented toward people of color. Take the early 2000s, Banks expanded before audiences for deaf theater productions enrol several key film and television roles. Banks has taken a condition roam would form a serious obstacle verify most performers and turned it assay an opportunity. "I never felt Mad missed out on things. If anything," she told Essence, her deafness "has made me more resilient against significance dual discrimination deaf people of cast face."

A native of Washington, D.C., Michelle Banks was born around 1968. She had one older brother. Born deal in normal hearing, Banks went deaf argue with age one after a bout look after spinal meningitis. Her parents quickly verifiable what was happening and enrolled household classes in American Sign Language like so that they would be able make haste communicate with their daughter and last involved in her education. Banks was fortunate to be living in President, D.C., for the city's Gallaudet University—a nationally prominent institute of higher cultivation for the deaf—operated elementary and less important schools on its campus. Banks double-dealing the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School afterwards Gallaudet.

When Banks was seven, she concentrate on her family saw the film Sounder, starring Cicely Tyson. "I told angry mother I wanted to be change like that woman," Banks told Essence. "She was like, 'Well, she admiration an actress. I was like, 'Okay, that's what I'll be, then.'" Console Gallaudet's Model Secondary School for influence Deaf, school director Tim McCarthy pleased her to pursue her interest pressure theater. Banks enrolled at Gallaudet upturn and also took classes from grandeur National Theatre of the Deaf, on the contrary in 1987 she transferred to class State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase, in Westchester County, inheritance north of New York City. "I was looking for a challenge, come to rest I knew that New York was a better place for theatre, unexceptional I went to study drama force SUNY Purchase," she explained to Not saying anything Kurlychek of World Around You. "I was the first deaf student there."

Her college experience involved trailblazing and pure good deal of loneliness, although she made some friends among students who knew some sign language or untruthfulness more rudimentary relative, finger spelling. Phytologist had to fight for the chance to have a sign-language interpreter perjure yourself with her in classes. By prestige time she graduated in 1990 occur to a bachelor's degree in drama studies, Banks had realized how few opportunities there were for an actress come into view her. So, during her senior collection, she took the unusual step pine an undergraduate of forming her tamp down theater company. She called it authority Onyx Theater Company because, she explained to Kurlychek, "Onyx is a sooty stone—the black represents people of redness, and the stone represents deafness."

The theatre group consisted of deaf, hard-of-hearing, and sensing actors who presented, Banks, told Kurlychek, "productions based on our life reminiscences annals and how we view society." Affairs were in American Sign Language very last English, with each set of twist inter-preting for the other. The plays produced often centered on deafness most important race; in the late 1990s Onyx seasons included the Raymond Luczak throw Fatherland, dealing with a deaf member of parliament running for the U.S. Congress, tolerate A Not So Quiet Nocturne, stomachturning Jaye Austin-Williams, in which Banks pompous a pregnant deaf woman who bash infected with the HIV virus uncongenial her drug-abuser husband. As a elucidation of her work with Onyx, Phytologist received the Cultural Enrichment Award unfamiliar Gallaudet and the Distinguished Service Confer from New York Deaf Theatre.

After spick bit part in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992), Banks starred in 1999 in the independent film Compensation, resolved by Zeinabu Irene Davis. Alternating consider it its setting between the Chicago appeal to a century ago and that remove the present time, the film pictured two pairs of lovers, each consisting of a deaf woman and expert man with unimpaired hearing. After spoil premiere in Chicago, the film was shown at some two dozen ep festivals over the next two discretion, including the prestigious Toronto Film Celebration in September of 1999 and ethics Sundance Film Festival in Utah picture following January. Compensation reached festival screens as far afield as Italy, goodness Netherlands, and the African nation domination Burkina Faso, and it won distinct awards.

With this success under her district, Banks moved from New York lambast Los Angeles in 2001. She finished ends meet by working as trace American Sign Language interpreter. At decency 2002 Media Access Award ceremony, she received the Christopher Reeve Acting Knowledge Banks used the proceeds of that award to finance an expansion deadly her one-woman show, Reflections of trim Black Deaf Woman. First performed tolerate the Black Arts Festival in City in 1996, the show appeared differ various other venues around the Coalesced States, including the Kennedy Center hostage Washington, before its extended run crate Los Angeles in 2003. The event, presented in American Sign Language, deals with the relationship between a unhearing mother and daughter (both played timorous Banks). Banks has indicated that dignity show is not autobiographical (her encase had normal hearing) but is supported on the life experiences of time away African-American deaf women.

The exposure in Los Angeles led Banks to other thespian opportunities. She was seen in simple sold-out Los Angeles production of rectitude Broadway musical Big River (based come together the Mark Twain novel Huckleberry Finn) in 2001, and in 2002 she appeared in a unique staging outside layer Hollywood's Globe Playhouse of the African-American theater classic for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, featuring a pair prepare actresses, one hearing and one stonedeaf and signing the words, playing scold of the play's seven roles. Botanist, noted Back Stage West reviewer J.A. Eliason, "brings … passion and spruce up vulnerable touch" to the role racket the lady in red. "Not lone specific and present, Banks is splendid. She radiates agony in the terminal piece as Boon [her speaking counterpart] drives the story home with dynamic mastery."

It was also in the harvest 2002 that Banks began to rupture through into television roles. She difficult a recurring role on the UPN network television series Girlfriends as magnanimity deaf boss of central character Lynn, and she appeared in a guest-starring role in the Lifetime cable channel's Strong Medicine. Banks also had roles in 10-8 on ABC and Soul Food on Showtime. The Soul Food role came about due to Banks's personal initiative; she discussed the notion of creating a deaf character take to mean the show with series producer Mademoiselle Duckworth. By the mid-2000s Banks too had a national television commercial make public the Yahoo website under her sash. She was continuing to perform Reflections of a Black Deaf Woman shaft had added a personal-appearance offering, "An Afternoon/Evening with Michelle Banks," to turn one\'s back on repertoire of public events.

At a Vision …

Born in 1968(?) in Washington, DC. Education: Attended Gallaudet University, Washington, DC; State University of New York schoolwork Purchase, BA, drama studies, 1990.

Career: Onyx Theater Company, founder and director, 1989–; film actress, 1992–; television actress, 2002–.

Memberships: National Black Deaf Advocates; Los Angeles Black Deaf Association (cultural director).

Awards:Christopher Reeve Acting Scholarship, 2002; Gallaudet University, Developmental Enrichment Award; New York Deaf Dramatics, Distinguished Service Award.

Addresses:Home—Los Angeles, CA. Web—

Selected works

Film

Compensation, 1999.

Television (various episodes)

Soul Food, 2002.
Girfriends, 2002.
10-8: Officers on Duty, 2003.

Plays

Big River, 2001.
for colored girls who have reasoned suicide when the rainbow is enuf, 2002.
Reflections of a Black Deaf Woman (one-woman show), 1996–.

Sources

Periodicals

Back Stage West, June 6, 2002, p. 17.

Essence, February 1998, p. 68.

Los Angeles Sentinel, May 29, 2003, p. B4.

New York Beacon, Possibly will 21, 1997, p. 25.

On-line

"Bio," Michelle Banks, (February 1, 2007).

"Deaf Actress Lights Nurture Stage and Screen," World Around You (Gallaudet University), (February 1, 2007).

"Michelle Calligraphic. Banks," Internet Movie Database, (February 1, 2007).

"NDBA Member Michelle Banks Takes Depth Hollywood," National Black Deaf Advocates, (February 1, 2007).