Troupe Brings Deaf Culture Into the Hear and Now : Benefit: Quiet Zone will present magic acts, mime, skits and lip-synced songs in sign language at the Irvine Barclay.

Quiet Zone Theatre, an amateur troupe catering to the deaf and hard of hearing, will present magic acts, mime, skits and lip-synced songs on its seventh annual benefit program tonight at Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Everything will be presented in sign language, but charter member Joshua Vecchione assures that a “voice interpreter” will translate for those who don’t understand the hand signals.

“The show is for everyone,” says Vecchione, who made his acting debut with the all-volunteer, nonprofit troupe seven years ago. He has moved up to produce and direct this year’s show.

About half of the cast and crew of 62 Orange County residents are deaf or hard of hearing; the remainder are hearing sign-language students from local community colleges.

“I’ve always really liked our whole purpose, and I just continued to grow with Quiet Zone,” Vecchione said recently.

That purpose is to provide entertainment for the deaf and hard of hearing (like Vecchione), raise funds for nonprofit organizations serving the deaf, and introduce more people to “the deaf culture” and the “beauty of sign language,” Vecchione said.

The group further creates an all-too-rare opportunity for members of the deaf community to develop and display their talents, he said in a phone interview from the Mission Viejo jewelry store he owns.

“I’ve seen some very shy people, but put them on stage, and you can’t get them off,” he said with an infectious laugh. “All of a sudden, all this hidden talent comes out. I get a thrill out of seeing that.”

Tonight’s two-hour program, presented earlier this year to sellout crowds at Laguna Playhouse and Irvine’s University High School, will benefit Taft Elementary School in Santa Ana (whose hard-of-hearing principal, Steven T. Longacre, will perform magic tricks in the show). It will also benefit health education programs at University High School and, among other things, pay for one local child to attend Deaf Kids Camp in Three Rivers, Calif., near Sequoia National Park.

Lip-syncing performers not only mouth and sign words to pop hits, but also dance and act out a short narrative in costume. For instance, dancers will pop out of graveyard coffins for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (mimicking the song’s video), and a toy maker will make his toys come alive for Janet Jackson’s “Control.”

Signing a song “is not visually entertaining for the deaf,” Vecchione said, “unless you create a story line and make it visual.”

Every lip-synced word and all signed gestures and dance moves are memorized, as is the musical timing to which they must be executed, he explained.

Plus, he said, speakers blasting the songs are placed backstage, and, if a deaf performer is off-tempo or loses his or her place in a song, visual cues--such as a head scratch--are given by hearing performers sharing the stage to get things back on track.

Skits on the program include one in which Vecchione, dressed as a baby in diapers, pulls someone out of the audience for an impromptu “mime about babies.”

“I love it,” he said. “It’s all unrehearsed, and sometimes you’ll get someone who really goes with the flow. Sometimes they need a little encouragement.”

Quiet Zone members have also performed at Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and at municipal events. Some will take part July 16 in a Community Deaf Festival sponsored by Hands of Praise, a deaf outreach ministry of the Main Place Christian Fellowship, whose congregation once met in a movie theater at the MainPlace/Santa Ana mall.

Donations accepted for such engagements help fund the troupe’s expenses, Vecchione said, including rent on a 2,000-square-foot rehearsal hall in Laguna Hills. This fall, the troupe hopes to launch sign-language and other workshops at the facility, which it secured in April and also uses for storage and prop construction.

* Quiet Zone Theatre’s seventh annual benefit performance is tonigh t at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. 7 p.m . $12. (714) 854-4646. * The Main Place Christian Fellowship’s Community Deaf Festival, with arts and crafts, information booths and entertainment, is July 16 at 1701 E. Edinger Ave., Building H, Santa Ana. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free. (714) 547-3416.