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February 2002
Editor: Many of us are now familiar with captioned movies and the two
competing standards - open captioned and closed captioned. But how many
of us have attended a captioned performance of live theater? Folks in
San Jose recently had the opportunity to do so, thanks to a pager-sized
device from Personal Captioning Systems. This cool gizmo not only
provides captions to those who want them, but does so in the most
unobtrusive manner I've seen. I think it answers many of the objections
people have to current implementations of both types of captioning
systems. Here's the press release.
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The January 25th weekend performances of EVITA at the American
Musical Theater of San Jose provided the latest demonstration site for
the captioning technology developed by Personal Captioning Systems.
Patrons who were deaf and hard of hearing read the captions of the show
from wireless TV like displays. The 4 inch battery powered units
provided crisp white letter captions on a black background.
Prior to the performances the script was converted from a standard
live theater/musical theater script to standard captioning format using
PCS Live Theater Captioning software. During the performance an
individual in the theater kept the captions synchronized with the action
on stage with the simple click of a button.
PCS Live Theater Captioning Systems, Inc. would like to provide this
most valuable accommodation to any seat in every "house" at
every performance.
For additional information please visit the Personal
Captioning System listing in our Resources
Directory.
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by Carol Granaldi
Editor: We're all used to seeing interpreters make stage plays
accessible to signers with hearing loss. It's much less common to see
captioning make stage plays accessible to non-signers with hearing loss.
But that's starting to change, thanks largely to advocates' efforts to
educate the people who can make those things happen. One such person is
Carol Granaldi of Ocean County, NJ, the co-founder and former president
of SHHH-NJ. Carol took the time to write a letter in response to a local
newspaper article about interpreters making theater accessible to those
"who may have difficulty hearing". Here's what she had to say.
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A July 31 article about the use of sign language interpreters at the
Toms RiverFest states: "Sign language interpreters have been
positioned beside the stages at every performance at the festival, to
assist those who may have difficulty hearing."
It is a great misconception that sign language interpreters assist
many of those with "difficulty" hearing. As one who is among
the vast majority of those who hear poorly and unable to utilize sign
language, I ask the newspaper to be cognizant of terminology relating to
deaf or hard-of-hearing people.
Overwhelmingly, those of us with difficulty hearing who attend such a
festival would benefit greatly from "captioning" technology.
I've attended group gatherings where text is imposed onto a large screen
to enable people with hearing loss to see the speakers' faces and read
the text. A form of crawl captioning called "Silent Radio"
that is used in theaters could also allow us to follow the words of the
performers.
Sign language interpreters are useful to a minuscule group of deaf
people fluent in sign language who are positioned close enough to be
able to watch interpreters' hand movements. Others needing the
captioning would also need to be close to the screen or the Silent Radio
crawl to read the text. One in 10 people has some form of hearing loss,
and this larger group would appreciate communication enablement, not
through sign language interpreters, but through captions in English.
It is admirable that the Toms RiverFest provided sign language
interpreters. However, we do ask that in future RiverFests this
captioning service be provided to non-signers.
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September 2005
Washington, DC--Ford’s Theatre today announced that it will provide
I-Caption devices during the run of Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies (Sept.
23 – Oct. 23) that will enable Deaf and hard of hearing patrons to
follow the onstage dialogue. Ford’s first utilized I-Caption
technology during last season’s successful run of Big River: The
Adventures of Big River, which included Deaf, hard of hearing and
hearing cast members.
“The Washington area is the home of the nation’s largest Deaf and
hard of hearing community,” said Ford’s Producing Director Paul R.
Tetreault. “I-Caption technology will allow us to better serve this
enthusiastic group of theatre goers who usually are able to enjoy only a
few signed or audio-described performances of each production. During
the run of Big River, we noticed a marked increase in the number of Deaf
and hard of hearing patrons and volunteers who attended performances at
Ford’s. We want to continue to make theatre more accessible to this
vibrant population,” said Tetreault.
Ford’s Theatre will lease the I-Caption devices during the four-week
run of Leading Ladies. The theatre is seeking funding to continue to
provide the service throughout the season. I-Caption technology is the
latest innovation in assistive technology from soundassociates.com.
The I-Caption system features a proprietary handheld unit that displays
the text of the entire show verbatim, in real time from any seat in the
house. The text is automated and synchronized with sound and lighting
cues to accommodate pacing variations from performance to performance. A
polarized screen keeps nearby patrons from being distracted by light or
moving text. The system made its debut in Deaf West’s production of
Big River on Broadway and was available for all performances of the
national touring companies.
Ford’s patrons can obtain an I-Caption unit, free of charge, from
house management.
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April 2007
Thanks to government and Arts Council grants, more
and more theatres are able to offer captioned performances to people
with impaired hearing. Captioning is an emerging craft that demands a
combination of skills - not least the ability to maintain concentration
for long periods. £1m is being spent to improve access to performances.
In theory, captioning a live stage performance should be si mplicity
itself - all the lines are loaded into a computer so all you have to do
is display them at the right time. If only it were that simple. Roz
Chalmers was one of the first people to train as a captioner and admits
that in the early days, the whole process was a question of trial and
error. Full
Story
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February 2008
A non-profit agency called c2 (caption coalition) is
providing captioned theater at many locations throughout the US. If you've
given up live theater because you can't understand the dialog, you might
want to consider attending one of their captioned performances in Ashland,
Boston, Ft Lauderdale, Hartford, Lakewood, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Miami,
Minneapolis, Newark, New Brunswick, Philadelphia, Tampa, Washington DC,
Wayne, Westport and West Palm Beach, with more to come.
Full Story
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December 2008
In a first for off-Broadway entertainment in
Rochester, one performance of Mamma Mia! at the Auditorium Theatre will
have live captioning for hard-of-hearing and deaf audience members. An LED
panel - similar to a "now boarding" sign at an airport gate - will be
positioned to the left of the stage during the musical's matinee today.
Three lines will scroll up the 4-foot-wide, 1-foot-tall screen, one line
at a time, and be easily viewed from 20-some rows to house left. The
2-inch-high amber-colored text will be loaded into a laptop computer, but
scrolled live, allowing any unscripted speech to be added. Rochester is
known for having a large deaf population for its size. But significantly
more people - likely more than 100,000 people in Monroe County - have some
degree of hearing loss. Captioning can help people with varied levels of
hearing, including those without hearing aids and those who don't know
American Sign Language, as long as they can read English.
Full Story
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April 2009
Seattle's vibrant drama scene continues to become
more accessible to people with hearing loss, as both the Intiman Theatre
and the Seattle Repertory Theatre take concrete steps towards offering
captioned performances and Paramount Theatre releases its full schedule of
captioned shows in 2009. Following our written requests for captioned
performances, I had a very productive meeting earlier this week with
Intiman's incoming and outgoing Board presidents and two of its key staff
members. Intiman is receptive to the idea of captioning one performance of
each of its annual productions, and is currently seeking financial support
from the Theatre Development Fund of New York to make that possible. (One
of TDF's missions is to enhance accessibility of live theater). Seattle
Repertory Theatre is in the same situation. It plans to start offering
captioned performances beginning this fall, and it is looking for funding
as well, also from TDF.
Full Story
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Captioned Live Theater Performances
Sept 2009
Here's a list of captioned live theater performances
in the US. If you know of a captioned performance that isn't included, I
bet the folks running this website would love to hear about it!
Full Story
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December 2009
Thanks to the good efforts of a number of
Seattle's live theaters, those of us with hearing loss won't need to have
a holiday season full of nothing but silent nights, as we'll have a menu
of captioned performances available to us. [snip] The captioning at all
three theaters is being done by c2net from Boston, which converts the
script into text form in advance, then displays the captions on a portable
reader board visible from a bloc of seats set aside for those who request
them. The captioning effort has been partially funded by the Theatre
Development Fund from New York City. The captioning efforts were
undertaken after requests from the Washington State Communication Access
Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership corporation whose purpose is
to improve access to Washington's public places for people with hearing
loss. Full
Story
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March 2010
The next time you complain about not being able to
see the stage from the nosebleed sections of a Broadway theater, think
about not being able to see the stage at all. "No one wants to feel left
out of a performance," said Lisa Carling, the director of the Theater
Development Fund's accessibility program, which offers assistance to
theatergoers with physical disabilities. "If you miss a punchline or a
dramatic statement, everyone else is included but you are not." The
Theater Development Fund, which also runs the city's TKTS discount ticket
booths, helps coordinate services for the blind or those with low vision,
the deaf or hard of hearing and patrons who can't climb stairs or need
wheelchair seating. "When we started 13 years ago, advocates for the
disabled came to us and said, 'Please, I haven't been able to go to the
theater for years because my hearing has deteriorated,'" said Ms. Carling.
"People were staying away from the theater." Ms. Carling recently spoke to
The Times about what kinds of services the TDF Accessibility Program, or
TAP, offers to the disabled. Following are excerpts from her
conversation.
Full Story
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March 2010
Deaf actor Howie Seago knows how hard it can be
for deaf audience members to experience plays at the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival. "I've had to hassle with reading scripts with a small light to
follow the plays," Seago said in an e-mail sent in-between performances of
"Hamlet," in which he plays the ghost of a murdered king. Seago said he is
pleased by OSF's growing efforts to offer captioned plays for the deaf
community. During the 2010 season, OSF is offering an all-time high of 11
captioned performances for deaf and hearing impaired audience members. The
captions appear on a light emitting diode, or LED, board that is set up
near the bottom of the stage to the audience's left. "There are more and
more deaf people becoming interested in the OSF shows and it is great to
offer them the flexibility of when to see them," Seago said. "I, myself,
will be now able to easily access the other shows I'm not in."
Full Story
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by John Waldo
November 2010
The renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival has
developed plans that, when fully implemented, will make it the nation's
most accessible live theater for people with hearing loss. OSF will
schedule 20 captioned drama presentations in the 2011 season, almost
doubling its scheduled captioned offerings in 2010. But even better, OSF
hopes to be able to offer open captioning on request (once the captions
are completed) for any of its plays, given adequate notice. Those plans
were unveiled at a mid-October meeting involving OSF's Executive Director
Paul Nicholson, Access Coordinator Jim Amberg and Audience Service Manager
Radawna Wallace, Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP) Vice
President Clark Anderson and me, representing both OR-CAP and the
Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP). OSF is located
in Ashland, Oregon, a lovely but remote small town located almost
equidistant between Sacramento, California and Portland, Oregon. It draws
patrons from throughout the nation, but most come from California, Oregon
and Washington. Unlike patrons at a typical live theater in a major city
like Seattle, patrons don't tend to go to Ashland multiple times during a
season. Rather, they go for a long weekend or a full week, and see a
number of plays, often two per day.
Full Story
