Skip to content
Navigating a New Political Landscape: View real-time updates about the impact of and Northeastern’s response to recent political changes.
Apply
Stories

Deaf performer and ‘fan favorite’ Erin Rosenfeld takes Broadway

People in this story

Northeastern alum Erin Rosenfeld, an ASL performer and activist, gets ready in her dressing room in the Lyceum Theatre in New York City on Wednesday, July 26, 2023.

The stage lights go up in the Lyceum Theatre, revealing a woman with a straggly gray braid dozing on a couch and a half-dozen actresses dressed in nightgowns playing teenage girls. They swarm the rickety, overstuffed cabin interior that is the set of the Broadway horror play “Grey House,” thumping the floorboards, crouching on a shabby dining table, scurrying up and down stairs slamming doors, and chanting in spooky unison: Get in the house girl, it’s time for dinner!

The vibes are more cheerful in a dressing room above the stage where Erin Rosenfeld keeps an eye on the backstage monitors. Rosenfeld, a 2023 Northeastern University graduate, serves as understudy for three of the teenage roles—primarily “Bernie,” a silent, deaf character who communicates through sign language. When the show first opened this past spring, Rosenfeld and her fellow standbys paid close attention, taking notes on blocking changes and line cues in case they had to go on. But this is the play’s last week before closing on July 30; they know their parts inside out. “We’ve gotten more comfortable, and there’s a lot more shenanigans that occur backstage,” she says. The auxiliary cast spends hours bonding in a comfy greenroom in the Lyceum’s basement, playing games and bedazzling each other’s faces.

Continue reading at NGN Magazine.

More Stories

Laurel and Scroll 100 honors outstanding graduate students for achievements aligning with the university’s mission, ideals and values. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Northeastern honors top graduate students with launch of Laurel and Scroll 100 Society

04.15.2025
Eli Curwin sits at his laptop

From City Hall to Congress, Northeastern co-op student finds his voice on Mayor Wu’s speechwriting team

04.15.2025
President Donald Trump, left, greets Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, outside the White House on Monday, April 14, 2025.

Did Donald Trump defy a Supreme Court order to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

04.15.25
All Stories