Four decades of NTID theater at RIT Museum

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NTID Performing Arts

A photo from a 1977 performance of Alice in Wonderland at NTID is one of many items displayed at the RIT Museum remembering 40 years of performing arts history from NTID.

Nearly 40 years of performing arts history from NTID is on display at a new exhibit at the RIT Museum on the third floor of Wallace Library.

The exhibit, “All the World’s a Stage,” traces the history of the NTID Performing Arts program, starting with the founding of the NTID Drama Club in 1970 by Robert F. Panara.

Colorful exhibits include items found in the collections at NTID and the RIT Archives, including pictures, posters, programs, costumes and masks from performances such as Cinderella, Peter Pan, the Sunshine Too traveling theater troupe, and The Taming of the Shrew, the first play in the Panara Theatre after NTID’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Building was dedicated in 1974.

“The NTID Performing Arts Program has provided a safe haven for deaf theater for more than 40 years,” says Aaron Kelstone, a faculty member in NTID’s cultural and creative studies department.

The exhibit is co-sponsored by the RIT Archive Collections and NTID. The Deaf Studies Archive has NTID historical records, videotapes, artworks by deaf artists, and much more.

The exhibit, which runs through December, is free and open to the public during library hours, 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m.