Join us for an afternoon of PUMPKIN FUN! 

We will have:

Pumpkin Bowling

Pumpkin Golf

Pumpkin Darts

Pumpkin Ring Toss

Pumpkin Crafts

Pumpkin EVERYTHING! 

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This is a one of a kind event in Nashville. Join us!

Click below to find out more!

Come join us at DeafNation NASHVILLE!  

DeafNation World Expo showcases product like exhibitions, workshops, entertainment, sporting activities, presentation, and networking for one of the most memorable events you'll ever attend. Come visit the tables of companies, schools and ministries, all for FREE!

How do you describe BSL NASHVILLE? It's an intense week of education, a crazy week of laughter and tears, and hugs and overcoming fears. It's a thousand facts crammed in your brain leaving only 10,000 more we want to try and sneak in when you aren't looking. It's life Performance Interpreting practice with tons of feedback in workshop and live concert settings. It's fellowship between pros and students on a level like no other workshop. It's a life changing experience. You show up with your bag of what you know, and we pick through it tossing a few things along the way and refill your bag with ideas and tricks and tips and love. Then we set you free to grow into greatness. It's a crazy undefinable experience but it will change your life, your heart, and your career. 3.5 PS CEUs Available. CLICK below to find out more! Applications are due by MAY 4th, 2018.

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Welcome to Bringing WORSHIP to Life: NASHVILLE, the 8th workshop in the BSL (Bringing the Stage to Life) series. This workshop is our second intensive training. The first, BSL NASHVILLE, was the only workshop of its kind in the world, where people from around the globe could come together in Nashville to learn to interpret all types of music with new life and new passion, making music more accessible to the Deaf than ever. Bringing WORSHIP to Life NASHVILLE takes that vision a step further for individuals in Bible based religious settings. This workshop starts with the inside of the interpreter, and works out, refining our hearts, our character and our vision, followed by refining one's glossing (translation) and performance skills. Unlike most professional workshops, it unites home grown interpreters, with interpreting students, professionals, and even with Deaf consumers. It will radically reshape everyone's perspective of what it means to be an interpreter in the church. All of this occurs in a beautiful retreat on the outskirts of Nashville, TN, Music City, USA.

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People worship to find connection, yet worship interpreters are often disconnected with the music, the artists, the environment, and even with the God they are supposedly worshiping as they sign. Bringing WORSHIP to Life TOO is the 6th workshop in our BSL series, and part 2 of our worship series. This workshop teaches attendees creative ideas for glossing and performance while touching on additional characteristics of great worship interpreters. If you want to be great at WORSHIP, this is the workshop for you! 

Do you want to learn how to interpret music? Join us for Bringing the Stage to Life - EXTENDED at the Montana RID Conference this August! You will learn about hair, attire, stage equipment, glossing for the stage, and of course the unique skills needed to make your musical interpreting come to life! Click on the link provided to find out more or to register.

"If only I could make my father understand. I don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be so bad. "

In a kingdom beneath the sea, King Triton’s youngest daughter Ariel yearns to have her questions answered about the human world. When she saves the handsome Prince Eric from drowning, Ariel begins to discover her own voice with the help of her friends – even after the tricky sea witch silences her. Based on one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most beloved fairy tales, this classic will be given its own dose of NCT magic. Performed with a live orchestra!

Do you want to learn how to interpret music? Join us for Bringing the Stage to Life - EXTENDED at the Montana RID Conference this August! You will learn about hair, attire, stage equipment, glossing for the stage, and of course the unique skills needed to make your musical interpreting come to life! Click on the link provided to find out more or to register.

Worship often ushers Hearing people into the presence of God. For the Deaf it is usually painful to watch. We believe the Deaf should be able to worship with as much vigor as the Hearing. It can be done, but interpreters need to up their game. This workshop teaches interpreters how to make the experience as impacting for the Deaf as it is for the Hearing. Don't miss this one of a kind workshop, the 5th in the BSL series. It just might change your life.

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New Production!

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"There are two ways down one long road. One clear path to two conclusions. Does the story end, or never end? Does the secret fade, or is it everlasting?"

“It is a fanciful tale that is related in Tuck Everlasting, but one that sends the imagination soaring.” - Jeffrey Ellis, Broadwayworld.com

After adventuring beyond her white picket fence, “good girl” Winnie Foster meets the energetic teenager Jesse Tuck, who leads her on an unexpected, magical journey. Soon she is faced with an extraordinary question: If you could choose to live forever, would you? Based on the best-selling novel by Natalie Babbitt, this heartfelt Broadway musical is full of soaring melodies and mischief. Performed with a live orchestra!

New Production!

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"There are two ways down one long road. One clear path to two conclusions. Does the story end, or never end? Does the secret fade, or is it everlasting?"

“It is a fanciful tale that is related in Tuck Everlasting, but one that sends the imagination soaring.” - Jeffrey Ellis, Broadwayworld.com

After adventuring beyond her white picket fence, “good girl” Winnie Foster meets the energetic teenager Jesse Tuck, who leads her on an unexpected, magical journey. Soon she is faced with an extraordinary question: If you could choose to live forever, would you? Based on the best-selling novel by Natalie Babbitt, this heartfelt Broadway musical is full of soaring melodies and mischief. Performed with a live orchestra!

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People worship to find connection, yet worship interpreters are often disconnected with the music, the artists, the environment, and even with the God they are supposedly worshiping as they sign. Bringing WORSHIP to Life TOO is the 6th workshop in our BSL series, and part 2 of our worship series. This workshop teaches attendees creative ideas for glossing and performance while touching on additional characteristics of great worship interpreters. If you want to be great at WORSHIP, this is the workshop for you! 

re you ready to be surrounded?

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The Nashville area is a beautiful hub of activity, growth, and potential. And although this town is constantly attracting attention and residents at a record pace, for me, it’s just home... a place that I love!

Although some of the growth and energy in the city is physical, I believe that much of the growth is profoundly spiritual. I’m sensing it is time for a gathering of believers in Jesus Christ to come together across denominations, races, ethnicities, and generations. It’s time for a night of prayer and worship for Middle Tennessee!

My hope is that this evening will be a space for us to pause, and that the pausing will give God an opportunity to move, to awaken in His people a greater hunger and thirst for Him. The ultimate goal is that He would shift our hearts toward those who surround us, that we’d experience God’s love in us and through us.

I hope that you’ll join me, some very special friends, and some local pastors & leaders, on August 30th at 7 pm at the Bridgestone Arena. I’m sure that anyone who attends, be they individuals, families and entire congregations, will experience an evening they will never forget.

Thanks to our friends at TBN, admission is 100% FREE.

~Michael W. Smith

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This workshop is perfect for all levels of interaction with performance. Professional performance interpreters, educational interpreters, religious interpreters, conference interpreters, VRS interpreters, students, all can find valuable information in this workshop. This is a rare opportunity to laugh and learn and be challenged in ways you never have.

Do you want to learn how to interpret music? Join us for Bringing the Stage to Life - EXTENDED at the Montana RID Conference this August! You will learn about hair, attire, stage equipment, glossing for the stage, and of course the unique skills needed to make your musical interpreting come to life! Click on the link provided to find out more or to register.

How do you describe BSL NASHVILLE? It's an intense week of education, a crazy week of laughter and tears, and hugs and overcoming fears. It's a thousand facts crammed in your brain leaving only 10,000 more we want to try and sneak in when you aren't looking. It's life Performance Interpreting practice with tons of feedback in workshop and live concert settings. It's fellowship between pros and students on a level like no other workshop. It's a life changing experience. You show up with your bag of what you know, and we pick through it tossing a few things along the way and refill your bag with ideas and tricks and tips and love. Then we set you free to grow into greatness. It's a crazy undefinable experience but it will change your life, your heart, and your career. 3.5 PS CEUs Available. CLICK below to find out more! Applications are due by MAY 4th, 2018.

​

Welcome to Bringing WORSHIP to Life: NASHVILLE, the 8th workshop in the BSL (Bringing the Stage to Life) series. This workshop is our second intensive training. The first, BSL NASHVILLE, was the only workshop of its kind in the world, where people from around the globe could come together in Nashville to learn to interpret all types of music with new life and new passion, making music more accessible to the Deaf than ever. Bringing WORSHIP to Life NASHVILLE takes that vision a step further for individuals in Bible based religious settings. This workshop starts with the inside of the interpreter, and works out, refining our hearts, our character and our vision, followed by refining one's glossing (translation) and performance skills. Unlike most professional workshops, it unites home grown interpreters, with interpreting students, professionals, and even with Deaf consumers. It will radically reshape everyone's perspective of what it means to be an interpreter in the church. All of this occurs in a beautiful retreat on the outskirts of Nashville, TN, Music City, USA.

​

​

People worship to find connection, yet worship interpreters are often disconnected with the music, the artists, the environment, and even with the God they are supposedly worshiping as they sign. Bringing WORSHIP to Life TOO is the 6th workshop in our BSL series, and part 2 of our worship series. This workshop teaches attendees creative ideas for glossing and performance while touching on additional characteristics of great worship interpreters. If you want to be great at WORSHIP, this is the workshop for you! 

People worship to find connection, yet worship interpreters are often disconnected with the music, the artists, the environment, and even with the God they are supposedly worshiping as they sign. Bringing WORSHIP to Life TOO is the 6th workshop in our BSL series, and part 2 of our worship series. This workshop teaches attendees creative ideas for glossing and performance while touching on additional characteristics of great worship interpreters. If you want to be great at WORSHIP, this is the workshop for you! 

Adapted for the stage by Julie Jensen
Based on the book Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Winner of the National Book Award

In Caitlin’s world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad.  Anything in between is confusing. That’s the stuff Caitlin’s older brother, Devon, has always explained. But Devon was killed during a school shooting and now she’s all on her own. (The incident at the school is not portrayed on stage. The story of the play begins after the tragedy.) Caitlin wants to get through it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger’s syndrome, she doesn’t know how. When she reads the definition of “closure” in the dictionary, she realizes that is what she and her father need. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white--the world is full of colors--messy and beautiful. Caitlin's thought processes, including her own unique brand of logic, are the star of this moving production about the differences that make us who we are.

Worship often ushers Hearing people into the presence of God. For the Deaf it is usually painful to watch. We believe the Deaf should be able to worship with as much vigor as the Hearing. It can be done, but interpreters need to up their game. This workshop teaches interpreters how to make the experience as impacting for the Deaf as it is for the Hearing. Don't miss this one of a kind workshop, the 5th in the BSL series. It just might change your life.

Worship often ushers Hearing people into the presence of God. For the Deaf it is usually painful to watch. We believe the Deaf should be able to worship with as much vigor as the Hearing. It can be done, but interpreters need to up their game. This workshop teaches interpreters how to make the experience as impacting for the Deaf as it is for the Hearing. Don't miss this one of a kind workshop, the 5th in the BSL series. It just might change your life.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS BEING HELD FOR SCHOOLS

"Do you think the only lessons learned in life are in books?"
Wanda Petronski, the new girl in Room 13, speaks with an accent, has a funny last name, lives in the wrong part of town, and wears the same faded blue dress to school every day. Who would believe she has a hundred bright, shiny new ones at home. As Wanda's story unfolds, her classmates learn the secret of the hundred dresses and with it, a lesson in tolerance, in taking responsibility, and in living with the consequences of one’s actions.

Based on the Newbery Honor winning novel, The Hundred Dresses takes audiences of all ages on a heartwarming journey about finding the courage to stand up for others, even if you are standing alone. 

TOPIC: Bullying

THIS PERFORMANCE IS BEING HELD FOR SCHOOLS

"Do you think the only lessons learned in life are in books?"
Wanda Petronski, the new girl in Room 13, speaks with an accent, has a funny last name, lives in the wrong part of town, and wears the same faded blue dress to school every day. Who would believe she has a hundred bright, shiny new ones at home. As Wanda's story unfolds, her classmates learn the secret of the hundred dresses and with it, a lesson in tolerance, in taking responsibility, and in living with the consequences of one’s actions.

Based on the Newbery Honor winning novel, The Hundred Dresses takes audiences of all ages on a heartwarming journey about finding the courage to stand up for others, even if you are standing alone. 

TOPIC: Bullying

Gate's staff once again travels to Mexico to love on some well deserving extremely impoverished Deaf children.Gate has a long standing relationship with a school for the Deaf in Matamoros, Tamps, MX. This school teaches Deaf children when no other options for Deaf access have been available in this part of the country. The kids at the school range in age from 3 to adulthood, and come in all forms from kids with extreme special needs to gifted. These kids have no legal rights, and no access in their home town. The school we support strives to change that. Click below to donate to this incredible cause.Check out our Facebook page to find out updates on our 2017 Mexico travels.

How do you describe BSL NASHVILLE? 

It's an intense week of education, a crazy week of laughter and tears, and hugs and overcoming fears. It's a thousand facts crammed in your brain leaving only 10,000 more we want to try and sneak in when you aren't looking. It's life Performance Interpreting practice with tons of feedback in workshop and live concert settings. It's fellowship between pros and students on a level like no other workshop. It's a life changing experience. You show up with your bag of what you know, and we pick through it tossing a few things along the way and refill your bag with ideas and tricks and tips and love. Then we set you free to grow into greatness. It's a crazy undefinable experience but it will change your life, your heart, and your career. 3.5 PS CEUs AvailableCLICK below to find out more! Applications are due by MAY 12th, 2017

Worship often ushers Hearing people into the presence of God. For the Deaf it is usually painful to watch. We believe the Deaf should be able to worship with as much vigor as the Hearing. It can be done, but interpreters need to up their game. This workshop teaches interpreters how to make the experience as impacting for the Deaf as it is for the Hearing. Don't miss this one of a kind workshop, the 5th in the BSL series. It just might change your life.

CLYBOURNE PARK is a play by Bruce Norris written as a spin-off to Lorraine Hansberry's renowned play A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959). It picks up where Hansberry left off, as the Youngers (a black family) decides to move from a South Side Chicago neighborhood to the all-white Clybourne Park. The story in CLYBOURNE PARK explodes in two outrageous acts set fifty years apart. We meet the Stollers, the white homeowners who decided to sell their house (purchased by the Youngers). In Act 1, still set in 1959, we meet the Stollers, the white residents of Clybourne Park who have sold their home to the Youngers without ever having met. Unaware of the integration headed their way, Karl Linder, the head of the Neighborhood Association who appeared in RAISIN, returns from his encounter with the Youngers, unable to sway their decision to move. Dan and Bev Stoller now find themselves at odds with their community, their past, and with each other. 

Act 2 fast forwards fifty years to 2009, and we find ourselves in the same house under very different circumstances. What has now become a predominately black neighborhood struggles to maintain its integrity and historic value as a white family seeks to purchase, demolish and rebuild a larger house in its place. CLYBOURNE PARK is a powerful and hilarious look into race, privilege, community, and gentrification.

Many interpreters today are required to interpret in foreign language environments. For educational interpreters this is a difficult task. Every Deaf student has a different set of needs, and every foreign language has a different set of challenges. This workshop helps educational interpreters manage those challenges felt in academic settings. It challenges interpreters to put themselves in the shoes of the Deaf and to deeply analyze how effective their interpretations are. 

Adventure awaits so lay your course for the sun-baked sands of the Caribbean as young Jim Hawkins, treasure map in hand, sets sail in an epic drum-pounding tale that has it all: suspense, comedy, mystery, swashbuckling swordplay, honor and treachery -- all amongst a crew of some of the most colorful heroes and villains in all of literature.  The ultimate pirate adventure, reinvented for today’s young audiences and families! 

Note to Parents: At the end of our play, our hero makes it home safely but other characters die both onstage and off. The play also features a sword and gun battle between our heroes and villains. It may help to remind your children that what they are witnessing onstage is carefully choreographed stage combat - it is meant to look realistic, but is designed to keep the actors completely safe. If there are moments that are too scary to watch, it's ok to cover eyes and ears!