Bernard Bragg By: Candice Pellak

He was born on September 27, 1928 in Brooklyn, NY He was an only child with deaf parents His dad managed & directed a small deaf amateur theater group Went to school at Fanwood where he met a teacher named Bob Panara who influenced him to act Panara produced “A Christmas Carol” & Bragg co directed & played the part of Scrooge He graduated in 1947 The Early Years

Gallaudet He went to Gallaudet & had leading roles in, “The Miser,” “The Bourgeois Gentleman,” & “Tartuffe” He was voted best actor of the year twice while at Gallaudet He graduated in 1952

After Gallaudet Bragg began teaching English at the California School for the Deaf in Berkely He attended night school at San Francisco State College He majored in education & minored in drama In 1956 he met the famous French mime, Marcel Marceau, who invited him to study in Paris over the summer He went to Paris that summer

Working as a Mime When he came back from Paris, Bragg performed mime all over the country He got a weekend job at “The Backstage,” a San Francisco nightclub He was commended by LIFE magazine as one of the best small nightclub performers in America He performed in different nightclubs, theaters, & private parties

TV Debut Bragg met Janet Mason who worked at NET (now PBS) & she offered him a weekly job so that he didn’t have to quit teaching He acted out Aesop’s fables & fairy tales He was offered his own show “The Quiet Man” ( ) On his show he did improvisations & specials including, “A Christmas Carol” & “Hamlet” He mimed all characters on his show

Continuing His Career & NTD While still teaching, Bragg performed all over the country & world He was nicknamed “Houdini of Pantomime” He helped found the National Theater of the Deaf in 1967 David Hays asked Bragg to choose other deaf performers from NTD for their 1 st effort, ‘NBC Experiment in TV with the NTD” The Alexander Graham Bell Association unsuccessfully tried to get the program not to air NTD’s 1 st production was “Gianni Schicchi”

Traveling Abroad In 1969, Bragg went to Russia & worked with deaf actors, learned Russian Sign Language, & was in the play, “Prometheus Unbound” After 10 years with NTD, he took a 1 year break He went on a 6 month tour to 25 countries as the American Goodwill Ambassador to deaf and hearing He left NTD when he came home, and continued as a lecturer in NTD’s professional School for the Deaf Theatre

More Productions He had a role in the CBS movie, “And Your Name Is Jonah” that aired in January 1979 He collaborated with Gene Bergman in an ASL play “Tales from a Clubroom”-it premiered at the 1980 NAD Centennial Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio For 15 years he was a Visiting Professor & artist- in-residence at Gallaudet ( ) He wrote his autobiography “Lessons in Laughter” in 1989 He co-wrote “Meeting Halfway in American Sign Language: A Common Ground for Effective Communication Among Deaf & Hearing People” (published in 1994 by Deaf Little Press)

Awards He won the International Medal from the World Federation of the Deaf for his service to the deaf world He got an honorary doctorate from Gallaudet shortly after DPN

In the Present He is still performing and he prefers live audiences because he enjoys interacting with them during his shows