Growing up as the only deaf person in his family, Ed Waterstreet didn't get the big deal about music. "When we went to the church and plays, I saw my family enjoyed being involved in the singing," Waterstreet, speaking through interpreter Bill O'Brien, said in a phone interview. "They would try to interpret for me, but I just didn't feel I was experiencing it." Curiosity about music settled into his mind. He'd often ask hearing friends to interpret songs for him in sign language. When they did, something clicked for him. "I saw that you can get visually into the music." This little seed stayed with Waterstreet, the founder of Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles. Finally, he decided to nourish the seed: His company put on the musical "Oliver!" with speaking and signing actors. It was a hit on the West Coast. So he nurtured the seed more. His company produced "Big River, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." The updated version of the 1985 musical by Roger Miller uses hearing and deaf actors to tell the story and sing the music. It, too, was a hit on the West Coast and moved to Broadway, where it won over audiences and critics and snagged a Tony. UApresents brings the show to Centennial Hall next week, with most of the Broadway cast intact. Don't make the mistake of thinking the musical has signers off to the side interpreting. The production integrates the hearing and the deaf actors, with all of them using American Sign Language. When a deaf actor is signing, a hearing actor is speaking. The result is a synchronized show that adds new layers of depth and beauty to the musical based on Mark Twain's book. It sounds like a crazy idea: a musical performed by deaf people. Waterstreet knows that. But he became convinced it was a good idea, too. "Maybe after 10 years of creating plays, I started to feel it was time to add sign music to a musical. . . . The idea was to create a new theatrical language." It worked for Deaf West's production of "Oliver!" What's more, it reached beyond the deaf community. "I noticed the hearing people got an extra lift from the play as well. . . . I didn't expect it to have quite the impact on the hearing that it did." He started looking for another vehicle to expand the concept and settled on "Big River." He turned to Jeff Calhoun, who had directed "Oliver!" and offered him "Big River." "I told them 'no,' " recalled Calhoun, speaking by phone from a train somewhere between New York City and Philadelphia the week before Christmas. "We got away with it in 'Oliver!' and I didn't think we could pull it off again." But once the genie has been let loose, said Calhoun, "you can't put it back in the bottle." Deaf West's "Oliver!" showed what was possible when deaf and hearing actors take the stage. It could be done again. "Big River" wasn't an easy play to direct, admitted Calhoun. "I was like a babe in the woods; I went into this innocently, not realizing it would be so difficult," he said. "I soon realized that every basic move you learned about directing has to be thrown out the window." Props can't be used by the signing actors; they need their hands to speak. Deaf actors can't hear music cues, so a system had to be worked out. In one scene, there's a knock on the door; how to develop a signal to the deaf actor that wouldn't be obvious to the audience. "You have to do visual cues. . . . It's one big magic act." This is a production in which the deaf and the hearing actors are on equal footing. "I was trying not to treat one culture any differently from the other," said Calhoun. "Every moment of the show is even-handed for the deaf and hearing. I didn't want hearing people putting on a show for the deaf; I didn't want to patronize the deaf. The deafness is never commented on." The experience for the choreographer and director renewed his faith in theater. "Going to Deaf West reinvigorated my whole spirit for the theater," he said. "I was having a career on Broadway, but it didn't feel inspired or important or that it was touching people. 'Big River' saved my creative soul. It was a godsend." This new form of theater broadens the experience and the audience, said O'Brien, who produced "Big River." "The sign language translation makes the experience equal for the deaf," he said. "We also tried to make it something that would be very clear to the hearing as well. The audience starts out ignorant about the culture. They see and hear what Huck is saying, and as time goes on they completely forget (that one character speaks while another signs). It's sort of like a magical little world; another experience."