The National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) is a touring theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 company in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was founded in 1967. Productions combine the use of American Sign Language

American Sign Language

American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...

 with the spoken word. The theatre has won several awards, including the Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Theatrical Excellence. Ex-NTD actress Phyllis Frelich

Phyllis Frelich

Phyllis Frelich is an American actress, and, with Marlee Matlin, one of the two pre-eminent deaf actresses in the United States. Frelich was born in Devils Lake, North Dakota to deaf parents and is the oldest of 9 children...

 won the 1980 Best Actress Tony Award for Children of a Lesser God

Children of a Lesser God

Children of a Lesser God is a 1986 American romantic drama film directed by Randa Haines and written by Hesper Anderson and Mark Medoff. An adaptation of Medoff's Tony Award-winning stage play of the same name, the film stars William Hurt and Marlee Matlin as two employees at a school for the deaf:...

produced by The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Linda Bove

Linda Bove

Linda Bove is a deaf American actress who played the part of Linda the Librarian on the children's television program Sesame Street from 1971 to 2003.-Sesame Street:...

, a regular on the television series Sesame Street

Sesame Street

Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

, also acted with NTD. Other famous actors who have worked with NTD include NTD co-founder Bernard Bragg, Colleen Dewhurst

Colleen Dewhurst

Colleen Rose Dewhurst was a Canadian-American actress known for a while as "the Queen of Off-Broadway." In her autobiography, Dewhurst wrote: "I had moved so quickly from one Off-Broadway production to the next that I was known, at one point, as the 'Queen of Off-Broadway'...

, Sir Michael Redgrave, Chita Rivera

Chita Rivera

Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...

, Jason Robards

Jason Robards

Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...

 and Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

.