Bruce Hlibok

Bruce Michael Mackintosh Hlibok (July 31, 1960 – June 23, 1995) was an American deaf actor, playwright, and poet born in Flushing, New York, to deaf parents Albert and Margaret Hlibok. The eldest of four siblings, he grew up in Queens and attended the Lexington School for the Deaf briefly before graduating from Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, in 1979. He subsequently enrolled at Gallaudet College before transferring to New York University, where he earned a degree in journalism and playwriting. During his youth he was a member of Metro Jr. NAD, attended Youth Leadership Camp, and directed his first formal play at the Union League of Deaf in 1978.

Hlibok became the first deaf actor to perform a main role in a Broadway production when he appeared in Runaways, the musical composed and directed by Elizabeth Swados and produced by Joseph Papp. The show premiered off-Broadway on February 21, 1978, at the Public Theater Cabaret as a New York Shakespeare Festival production, then transferred to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on May 13, 1978, closing on December 31, 1978, after 274 performances and 12 previews. The production received five Tony Award nominations. Hlibok was also the first performer to use sign language in the rhythm of music on stage.

Beyond Broadway, Hlibok founded the theater company Handstone Productions and completed twelve written plays that were produced at off-off-Broadway theaters in Manhattan as well as in Paris, France, and Amsterdam, Netherlands. He staged a one-man show, The Deaf-Mute Howls, based on Albert V. Ballin's memoir, and appeared in the off-Broadway production Another Person is a Foreign Country. His final stage role came in 1994 in the off-Broadway play The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He also served as a consultant for theaters for the deaf and on American Sign Language in general theater contexts.

In 1981, Hlibok authored a children's book titled Silent Dancer, about his sister Nancy's attendance at the Juilliard School of Dance. He was additionally recognized for his poetry composed in both American Sign Language and English.

Hlibok lived most of his life in New York, residing in Flushing and later Manhattan before settling in Jersey City, New Jersey. His long-term partner, Neal Johnson, a creative artist for Avon Products, died in 1987. Hlibok died on June 23, 1995, at the age of 34, from pneumonia as a complication of AIDS. Following his death, his family established an endowment at Gallaudet University that created an annual playwriting competition in his name, the Bruce Hlibok Playwriting Competition, and a library of resources at the Elstad Theatre on campus.