“Make Meat Great Again.” That shout comes from one of the disgruntled employees at Meat Expectations. For some time now, the people who work at this cleverly named meat processing plant have seen the principles of their beloved workplace undermined and their own skill, knowledge, and their very lives not valued. The employees’ disappointment is deeper because the new CEO of the company is a fourth-generation descendant of the original founder, someone they’ve watched grow up and who they sent off to college with high hopes and great — or, as punningly put in the title — Meat Expectations.
Embodying the show’s ironic sense of humor and outrage, this shout is delivered in American Sign Language (ASL) because this entire musical production — now in Gallaudet University’s Eastman Black Box Studio Theatre through April 27 — is performed in ASL. The show is designed to be accessible to Deaf and hearing audiences alike through the use of open captions and tactile music. New York Deaf Theatre commissioned the piece from a team of respected Deaf Theater creatives that included Lewis Merkin, JW Guido, Seth Gore, and Monique “MoMo” Holt and Deaf composer Jay Alan Zimmerman. Meat Expectations is a landmark piece of theater production. Instead of translating an English script into ASL, this piece of theater was developed from its inception in American Sign Language.
What is a musical without singing? Lyrics, like the rest of the text, are delivered in ASL. Composer Zimmerman’s beats and melodies are catchy, and you are aware that you are feeling those beats with the rest of the audience. We not only hear but also feel the vibration of tempo and texture in the music in our bodies. This production makes use of that tactile information to enable us to feel the music’s emotion and intention. In this production, the music is driving, stimulating, and convincing. Toward the end of the show, there is even audience participation when one of the characters teaches us a song in ASL and invites us to “sing” along.
Meat Expectations is a morality play, a fable of inheritance, survival, community, investment of people in themselves and the betrayal of that trust. The show features the type of buffoonery, slapstick, song, and dance that you would experience in an English pantomime performance. Consistent with being a morality play, the characters do not have personal names but rather are named by their role: CEO, CFO, Foreman, Butcher, Loudmouth, etc. The costumes and makeup reflect this fantastical and archetypal aspect of the story. Everyone has exaggerated, cartoonish makeup and hair. The meat cleavers are cut-outs. The CFO, an obviously slender person, is dressed in a fat suit. The entire cast takes to their roles with infectious energy and enjoyment. But special note must be made of Jayce Yeh, whose ecstatic, off-balance, and whirling-dervish dancing as the egotistical, self-serving CFO frequently threatened to take flight and filled the audience with amazement and delight.
Ethan Sinott’s industrial, metallic gray set, with vertical vinyl panels that keep the cold of the refrigeration confined without impeding movement through the spaces, evokes the no-nonsense desolation of a workspace devoted to making a profit from the blood of animals. (No judgment here. I mean, at Meat Expectations, the cows do get a massage beforehand, and they leave this veil of tears in a state of contentment.) But there is nothing frivolous about this space of panels and metal with no color or design to distract from the chopping and packaging of cow’s flesh. As the CFO is allowed to implement increasingly inhumane innovations, the music rumbles and grinds to announce the entry of the biggest, fastest flesh-chewing machine ever. At one point, the machine eats a portion of the arm of one of the dedicated and exhausted workers.
On opening night, sometimes the open captioning ran too fast, and sometimes the transliteration from ASL to English was challenging, so there was some frustration. The house manager seemed to anticipate this challenge and, at the top of the show, encouraged those of us in the hearing audience who did not use ASL to trust the visual storytelling and not lean so hard into having to understand everything concretely in words. That trust was justified.
Running Time: Approximately two hours plus a 15-minute intermission.
Meat Expectations plays April 24 to 26, 2025, at 8 pm; and April 26 and 27 at 2 pm, presented by Gallaudet University and New York Deaf Theatre, performing in the Eastman Blackbox Studio Theatre (adjacent to the Elstad Auditorium) on the campus of Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Ave. NE, Washington, DC. Tickets (ages 8–12, free; high school and college students, $10; Gallaudet students, free with discount code; adults, $20) are available online, by email (theatre.tickets@gallaudet.edu), or by calling 202-651-5501.
Open captions and tactile music make the show fully accessible to both Deaf and hearing audiences.
The program for Meat Expectations is online here.
Meat Expectations
Created by Lewis Merkin, JW Guido, Seth Gore, and MoMo Holt
Viscript Concept Conceived by Lewis Merkin and Annie Wiegand
Composer: Jay Alan Zimmerman
Assistant Composer: Mark Weissglass
Lewis Merkin passed in 2022. This production is in honor of his legacy.
CAST
CEO: Alyssa Glenn
CFO: Jayce Yeh
Foreman: Tyler Dees
Butcher: Nick Hohrman
Chick-Chick: Danyeal Davis
Lighthouse: Henry Baldwin
Loudmouth: Jordana Silva
Sweet-Sweet: Sydney Padgett
Ensemble: Maia Buzianis, Ray Poukish, Elghin Hebrado, Taylor Victor, Seth Wagner, Maizy Wilcox, Dazlyn Lopez
Co-Director, Choreographer & Music Director: Jules Dameron
Co-Director, Director of Artistic Sign Language (DASL): MoMo Holt
Assistant DASL: Krystal Sanders
Assistant Choreographer: Ashley Pigliavento
Pianist/Bandleader: Owen Posnett
Drummer/Percussionist: Dustin Garza
Lighting Designer/Producer: Annie Wiegand
Associate Lighting Designer/Lighting Supervisor: Norah Matthews
Scenic Designer: Ethan Sinnott
Costume Designer: Nikolya Sereda
Sound Designer: Justin Schmitz
Assistant Sound Designer & A1: Kiefer Cure
Projections/Captions Designer: Andres Poch
Stage Manager: Kathryn Lloyd
Assistant Stage Manager: Candace Broadnax
Assistant Stage Manager: Andrew Crawford
Stage Management Mentor: Sara Gehl
Backstage crew: Jason Williams
Prop Designer: Keith Saine, August Bird
Assistant Prop Designer: Nat Fordyce
Backstage, Board Ops, Wardrobe, Marketing, and House Management: Alma Robinson, Andrew Suarez, Jason Williams, Courtney Bronson, Kyra Dinkins, Taylor Victor, Thu Nguyen, TiKa Wallace, Steven Guerrier, and Carly Ortega
SEE ALSO:
‘Meat Expectations,’ new musical at Gallaudet University, created entirely in American Sign Language (feature by Courtney Bronson, April 14, 2025)
