Detour Company Theatre

Since 2001 Detour Company Theatre has been committed to making a journey in the arts possible for adults who are Deaf, Blind, Autistic, those with Down Syndrome and other genetic/cognitive conditions. Its mission is “to provide theater training and performance experiences that give its actors opportunities to develop artistry, demonstrate courage, practice collaboration, and experience joy while participating in the performance of musical theater.” Detour produces two to three main-stage Broadway musicals each year in the eight hundred seat theatre at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale, AZ.In addition to a stage full of actors, each production is supported by coaches, a live band, ASL interpreters, audio describers and professional sets and costumes. Detour also offers an “Up and Coming” program, summer movement and musical workshops, and an advanced touring company.

Sam (single name only), Detour’s founder and artistic director, received both her undergraduate and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Arizona State University. She served as a theatre arts and movement instructor for the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf as well as a certified ASL intrepreter for many Phoenix area theatre companies. She was on the Arizona Commission on the Arts roster for more than ten years doing workshops on disability awareness and sign language interpretation. In 2011 Detour was recognized by Arizona’s PBS station as winner of their “Be More Award.” That same year Sam received a Zoni for her service to the arts for her sign language intrepreting, and in 2018 she was awarded the prestigious Governor’s Arts Award for an individual who has made a significant contribution to Arizona’s arts community. Today Sam is delighted to be sharing the steps to “Taking a Detour” around the country. During Kathy Hotchner’s 23 year tenure as the Director of the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts she fell in love with Detour, offering theater space and support to the company when it grew out of its first performance spaces.After retirement from the Center she began video taping rehearsals with a future goal of making a documentary about this unique group. As Sam continued to receive multiple requests from people around the country asking how to create theater for this special population, Kathy realized that they had the material needed to create a handbook on “How to Detour.” She transcribed the video material, Sam shaped the chapters and together they edited the text and chose the pictures used to illustrate the written material. Kathy is a playwright with published works at Dramatics, Inc.