HARTFORD, Conn. — Troy Kotsur, who took home the trophy for best supporting actor at Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony, began his professional acting career over 30 years ago as a member of the National Theatre for the Deaf in Connecticut.
Kotsur, who won for the film “CODA” (which also took home the Best Motion Picture prize) is only the second deaf actor, and the first male deaf actor, to win an Oscar.
From 1991 to 1993, Kotsur performed primarily in two shows for the company. Kotsur was Hamlet in the play “Ophelia,” a new perspective on the Shakespeare play written expressly for the company by Jeff Wanshel. Kotsur was also in the cast of the National Theatre of the Deaf’s popular children’s theater adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson adventure story “Treasure Island,” which toured around the country.
Both “Ophelia” and “Treasure Island” were performed in Connecticut numerous times.
The National Theatre for the Deaf was founded in 1967. It was part as an explosion of regional theater companies in Connecticut at that time and is the oldest theatre company in the U.S. with a continuous history of domestic and international touring.It was initially based in Waterford, then in Chester, then in Hartford and then as part of the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford. In 2020, the company relocated to Washington, D.C., though a local entity now called National Theatre of the Deaf — Connecticut provides local, state and regional educational and theatrical programs. The company typically performed with a combination of signing and speaking actors. For Sunday’s Oscar telecast, the National Theatre of the Deaf provided a livestream which delivered the speeches in American Sign Language (ASL).
After leaving Connecticut around 1994, Kotsur moved to the West Coast, joining a brand new deaf theater company, Deaf West in Los Angeles, California. There, he became better known as both an actor and a director. He also met and married fellow deaf actor Deanne Bray; she had remembered seeing him in “Ophelia.”
It was with Deaf West that Troy Kotsur returned to perform in Connecticut in the company’s acclaimed production of the musical “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Following its success in Los Angeles in 2001 and on Broadway in 2003, “Big River” had a national tour, which visited the Shubert in New Haven in March 2005. Kotsur played several roles in that show, including Pap, Duke and Silas Phelps.
“CODA” — the film’s title is an acronym for “Child of Deaf Adults” — features several other actors associated with Deaf West. “CODA” is currently streaming on Apple + and is also available on DVD.
