Early January 2019, we began our rehearsal process for Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl with a very unusual day of activities … unusual because they were all experienced in voluntary silence.

Do I look like Smurfette in this pic? You’d tell me, right?
Our director, Anne-Marie, proposed a full-day optional experience of silence that she would program for us, to help with “cast bonding” (as it was right at the start of the rehearsal process) and to give us a taste of what keeping silent for a somewhat extended time period would feel like in today’s Las Vegas. We arrived and began with a yoga class, followed by a guided mindfulness meditation session.

Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.
After that, a very experienced hiker (and appropriately, also a doctor in theater) Dr. Ian Pugh arrived to be our guide on an outdoor hike that would take up the rest of the cold, beautiful winter afternoon. Ian made the inspired decision to keep silence along with us, but he had prepared some informational signs that he showed us to give us important background information about the hike, and along the way we learned some geological tidbits and were shown stunning and delicate fossils that I have no doubt we all would have missed had we been chatting in the usual manner of friends hiking together.
After the hike we returned back to the warmth of Anne-Marie & Joe’s house and had dinner all together as a group, still keeping silence, and then cleaned up according to our assignments that we had been given earlier.

Almost as old as Joe.
Only after the dishes were done, the food put away and the table wiped clean did we begin speaking again. At that point it had been somewhere around 7 hours of silence – not comparable to 5 days, but still a very unusual way to spend a day in 2019 with a group of 8 or 9 people!




I was raised by a hearing-impaired mother who I used no vocal sound with for 56 years. I found that whenever I had a profound emotional experience, I was silent. Now, I had a hearing father and siblings so I also balanced the silence with sound. The perspective of silence taught me one powerful teaching: words have immense power to heal or to harm.
Dina, What a profound experience you all had! Thank you for sharing this. I also appreciate John Bernstein’s comment (above). Yes, words have immense power to heal or to harm. We are teaching youth that once the words are out of our mouths, they are like toothpaste once out of the tube. Again, thank you!