Hearing Loss Law : Washington Hearing Loss Lawyer & Attorney : John Waldo Law Firm : Hard of Hearing, Disability, Hearing Impairment : Seattle, Bainbridge, Washington, Pacific Northwest

Seattle's three largest live theatres continue to offer accessible performances during the 2011-12 season for people with hearing loss through both captioning and sign-interpreted performances.

Here is the lineup at the Paramount Theatre:

West Side Story, Sunday, Jan. 15, ASL performance 1:00 p.m., captioned performance 6:30 p.m.

Beauty and the Beast, Sunday, Feb. 26, ASL performance 1:00 p.m.; captioned performance 6:30 p.m.

Mamma Mia, Sunday, March 25, ASL performance 1:00 p.m.; captioned performance 6:30 p.m.

Cats, Sunday, April 22, ASL performance 1:00 p.m.; captioned performance 6:30 p.m.

Million Dollar Quartet, Sunday, May 20, ASL performance 1:00 p.m.; captioned performance 6:30 p.m.

American Idiot, Sunday, June 10, ASL performance 1:00 p.m.; captioned performance 6:30 p.m.

Captions are prepared in advance from the script, and displayed on a portable LED reader-board in synch with the pace of the actual performance. Paramount sets aside a block of seats from which both the caption-display board and the on-stage action are visible in the same line of sight. Tickets are offered at a discounted price, and can be purchased on line.

Here is the lineup for Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre:

Captioned performances:

Cinderella, Sunday, Dec. 18, 1:30 p.m.

Oklahoma, Saturday, March 3, 2:00 p.m.

First Date, Thursday, April 19, 8:00 p.m.

Damn Yankees, Thursday, May 17, 8:00 p.m.

Rent, Saturday, Aug. 18, 8:00 p.m.

ASL performances:

Cinderella, Thursday, Dec. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Oklahoma, Saturday, March 3, 8:00 p.m.

First Date, Friday, March 30, 8:00 p.m.

Damn Yankees, Saturday, May 19, 8:00 p.m.

Rent, Saturday, Aug. 18, 8:00 p.m.

Tickets are available at a discounted price by email, ticketing@5thavenue.org.

In addition to volume-enhancing Assistive Listening Devices, 5th Avenue also offers a copy of the script with a book light for all shows to enable patrons with hearing loss to follow the dialogue. The script and booklight may be reserved in advance by email, ticketing@5thavenue.org, and permits patrons with hearing loss to enjoy productions if they cannot attend on the dates set aside for captioned or ASL-interpreted performances.

Here is the schedule for Seattle Repertory Theatre's captioned performances:

How to Write a New Book for the Bible, Thursday, Jan. 19, 7:30 p.m.

Red, Thursday, March 1, 7:30 p.m.

Clybourne Park, Thursday, April 26, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets may be purchased online by clicking on the links above.

Seattle Rep also offers ASL-interpreted performances. That schedule is available at www.tadanw.org.

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The nationally renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival is making its 2012 season fully accessible for people with hearing loss by scheduling 24 open-captioned performances and ten signed performances. Better yet, OSF will make unscheduled performances accessible upon request, provided that seats are still available in the captioned sections.

The captions are prepared in advance in-house, and are displayed in two or three line increments on a portable LED board. Seats are blocked out in areas from which the action on stage and the captions can be seen in the same line of sight. A live operatore advances the captions in synch with the pace of the performace, enabling us to read along and "hear" the dialogue with our eyes.

OSF is also clustering its captioned performances into five separate blocks. This was done in part at the request of the Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP). We noted that because of OSF's remote location in the lovely town of Ashland, Oregon, patrons don't generally make multiple visits in a season. Rather, they go once or twice, stay for several days, and see a number of plays. The clustering arrangement makes it possible for those of us who need captioning to enjoy the festival in the same manner as our friends and families.

Tickets in the captioned section are available at a discount, but the patrons must specify that they want to have tickets in the captioned section. Otherwise, they might be given seats from which the captions are not readily visible. The tickets may be ordered over the telephone or online at boxoffice@osfashland.org.

As usual, OSF's 11-play schedule is a mix of Shakespeare, works by other well-known playwrights, and new works.

The cluster dates for captioned performances are:

March 29-31 for Romeo and Juliet, Animal Crackers, The White Snake and Seagull.

May 10-13 for Romeo and Juliet, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, Seagull, The White Snake and Troilus and Cressida.

July 26-29 for The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, As You Like It, Party People, Henry V and Animal Crackers.

Sept. 7-9 for Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, As You Like It, All the Way and Henry V.

Oct. 18-20 for Party People, Troilus and Cressida, All the Way, Romeo and Juliet and Animal Crackers.

The clusters for sign-interpreted performances are:

April 26-30 for Animal Crackers, The White Snake and Romeo and Juliet.

July 12-14 for Henry V, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, and As You Like It.

Sept. 21-23 for Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, All the Way and Party People.

OSF regularly draws patrons from throughout the country, and particularly from Oregon, Washington and California. Despite the economic downturns, 2010 and 2011 were two of OSF's most successful seasons -- well over 90% of all available tickets were sold, and some plays were sold out for their entire runs. For that reason, it is never too early to order tickets.

OSF has been an absolute joy to work with on improving access for people with hearing loss. For those of us who have abandoned live theater, this is a great opportunity to participate once again.

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At its national convention last week, the Association of Late Deafened Adults (ALDA) highlighted the importance of access to public facilities by honoring me with the I. King Jordan award. The award, named for the first deaf president of Gallaudet University, was given in recognition of the work done to increase the availability of captioned entertainment, particularly at movie theaters.

In a sense, ALDA was honoring itself, and rightly so. ALDA was the organizational plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed in California against Cinemark theaters, America's third-largest theater chain. Along with Disability Rights Advocates, a public-interest law firm based in Berkeley, I represented ALDA in that case. The case was amicably resolved when Cinemark agreed to install and use captioning equipment at all of its first-run theaters in California.

After resolving the California case, Cinemark extended its commitment to full captioning nationwide. It uses a personal viewing device called CaptiView that is attached to a flexible goose-neck that fits into the cup-holder on the theater seat. The captions are transmitted wirelessly to the device and shown in lighted type. The devices are shielded so as not to disturb other viewers. Unlike the more familiar Rear Windows Captioning system, the CaptiView devices can be used equally well from any seat, and the captions are not interrupted when someone behind the viewer stands up.

At the ALDA convention, I received very favorable feedback from a number of people throughout the country that have experienced captioned movies with the CaptiView devices. Many of them said they had not been able to enjoy movies for years, but are thrilled to be able to join friends and family members at the theater.

After the Cinemark case had concluded, ALDA, DRA and I initiated conversations with AMC theaters, America's second-largest theater chain. AMC also agreed to provide full captioning capability in its first-run California theaters. We were able to sign that agreement at the convention. We understand that AMC also plans now to make captions available everywhere once its theaters are converted to digital projection.

Regal Cinemas, America's largest chain, also has committed to full captioning after digital conversion. Regal showed an open-captioned movie for ALDA conference attendees on the evening prior to the convention opening, and received thanks and recognition at the conference.

Earlier this year, the Civil Rights Section of the Washington State Bar presented me with this year's Distinguished Service Award. That was a welcome recognition that securing the rights and opportunities that federal and state disability laws extend to people with hearing loss is very much a part of the same civil-rights movement that has opened doors that may have been barred because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other characteristics that ought not be relevant.

None of those objectives could have been achieved without the support of organizations like ALDA, the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) and the Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP). Their willingness to clearly and persistently articulate our needs has made it possible to enrich the lives of all of us that live with hearing loss.

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The University of Oregon announced this week that it is beginning to offer open captioning of the stadium announcements at its football stadium, and continues to investigate doing the same at its other athletic venues. When that program is fully implemented, the U of O will become the national pace-setter in making athletic facilities accessible to fans with hearing loss.

The captions will be displayed on the scoreboards, visible to all attendees from any seat. A remote captioner working through a telephone or internet connection will convert the public-address announcements, penalty calls and intermission information into text form, accessible to anyone unable to hear what is being said.

The announcement comes after almost two years of ongoing advocacy efforts by individuals in the Eugene, Oregon area, and after a series of meetings between the university athletic department and representatives from the Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP). While other universities have The continuing cooperation between the university and the advocacy groups enabled us to reach this outcome without litigation or animosity.

The driving force behind the advocacy effort was the completion of the Matthew Knight Arena, the home of Oregon's basketball and volleyball teams. Several members of the Hearing Loss Association of Oregon contacted the athletic department, and became part of an ongoing effort to design disability-frlendly features for the new arena.

The university intially offered to provide captioning displayed on portable hand-held devices. After field-testing the devices, though, the advocates felt that they did not provide effective communication for a number of reasons that they enumerated in writing to the U of O. Chief among those reasons were the need to check the devices in and out, the frequent difficulties in establishing and maintaining connections, the difficulty of looking down to the device and back up at the field and court, and the inconvenience and "yuck" factor stemming from the need to tote the devices to the rest room.

In order to resolve the apparent impasse, U of O undertook a series of regular community meetings beginning in June of this year with an advocacy team from OR-CAP and some members of the Deaf community in Eugene. While U of O took our concerns about the shortcomings of hand-held devices seriously, university officials were initially uncertain about how scoreboard captioning could actually be undertaken at the Knight Arena.

Fortunately, our team included Carol Studenmund and Lisa Monfils from LNS Captioning in Portland. Carol, who is under contract with the National Basketball Association to provide captioning at the annual All Star Weekend. She demonstrated to U of O officials that the screens on the central Jumbotron scoreboards could be reconfigured to slightly reduce the vertical dimension of the replay screen, making room for two lines of captioned text below. U of O asked our group whether that was acceptable, and we were ecstatic.

After resolving the arena problem, the university turned its attention to its other athletic facilities. It was able to make scoreboard captioning a reality at its football facility in time for the home opener last week. It expects to provide captioning capability at the baseball park in time for the 2012 season, and at its track facility not only for the spring track season but for the Olympic Trials that will take place in Eugene next summer.

One legitimate question U of O officials raised is what events need to be captioned. They were particularly concerned about lightly attended events for which no admission may be charged. We agreed with them that it would be reasonable to establish an expected attendance threshhold at which the event will automatically be captioned, then to make captioning available upon request for events that would fall below that threshhold. That arrangement, we believe, will expose people who think their hearing is "normal" to the benefits of captioning without burdening the university with the expense of providing captions where there would be little or no audience or interest -- an arrangement we believe to be consistent with the "undue burden" defense of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Stadium captioning has been an ongoing legal challenge. The National Association of the Deaf has spearheaded successful legal actions against the Washington Redskins professional footbal team and the Ohio State University, and is currently involved in litigation against the University of Kentucky. Too often, facility managers have taken the position that one does not need to hear the public-address announcements to enjoy a sports event. But as the court said the in the Redskins case, the announcements, information, songs, etc., are all provided "for a reason," and therefore, if it's something that enhances the overall experience for the hearing fans, it's something that the deaf and hard of hearing fans are also entitled to enjoy.

The polite but persistent advocacy of the OR-CAP and HLA-OR members, the technical savvy from LNS and above all the good work and good will of Mike Duncan and the University of Oregon athletic and technical people have created a national model for accessible athletic venues, one that we hope other universities around the country will emulate.

The Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP) is a non-profit membership corporation whose purpose is to enrich the lives of individuals with hearing loss by making public places accessible through means such as captioning. It is a sister organization of the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP). John Waldo, an attorney with a significant hearing loss, is counsel to both groups. 

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Captioned theater will make its first appearance in Portland in August, when Portland Center for Performing Arts begins offering one captioned showing of each of its seven Broadway musical presentations. The first captioned presentation will be Mamma Mia! Sunday evening, Aug. 28, at 6:30 p.m.

PCPA introduced live captioning to Portland in cooperation with the Oregon Communication Access Project (OR-CAP), a sister organization to Wash-CAP. Like the Washington organization, OR-CAP is a non-profit membership corporation comprised largely of people with significant hearing loss, which has as its purpose expanding access to public facilities for those of us whose hearing loss has made participation in those activities difficult.

PCPA is partnering with the Theatre Development Fund from New York City, which provides financial assistance for start-up captioning efforts. Such assistance is extended on the basis that the theater will continue captioning thereafter. The captioning is actually done by c2net, also from New York, which provides theater captioning at numerous venues around the country, including those Seattle theaters that now offer such performances.

The captions -- dialogue, song lyrics and other aural information -- are prepared in advance, then displayed by a live operator in synch with the pace of that evening's performance. The captions are displayed on a portable LED reader-board placed to one side of the stage. Seats are set aside in an area of the theater from which the caption board and the stage are in the same line of sight, minimizing the need to look back and forth as the patron reads along with the performance.

The captioned performances will all take place at 6:30 p.m. on the final Sunday of each production's run.

Tickets for the captioned performances may be ordered at the box office, 1111 SW Broadway, by calling 503-248-4335 or online at boxoffice@pcpa.com.

Here is the full season:

Mamma Mia! -- Sunday, Aug. 28

Shrek the Musical! -- Sunday, Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m.

West Side Story -- Sunday, Jan. 8, 6:30 p.m.

Beauty and the Beast -- Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

Wicked -- Sunday, March 25, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

Million Dollar Quartet -- Sunday, May 27, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

Jersey Boys -- Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

"OR-CAP is pleased PCPA is responding in such a positive way to our request for the captioning of live performances," said OR-CAP President David Viers. "This will greatly enhance the theater-going experience for the thousands of us with hearing loss in the Portland Metro area."

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Washington's Law against Discrimination requires movie theaters to install equipment to show closed captions, according to a ruling issued today by a King County Superior Court judge. AMC, America's second-largest theater chain, will therefore be required to install captioning equipment once it converts its theaters to digital projection.

The ruling by Judge Regina Cahan came in a lawsuit that the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) filed in 2009 against the corporate theater owners doing business in King County, which includes Seattle and the Bellevue area. I represented Wash-CAP in the case.

Our lawsuit was filed under Washington state law, not under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Our state law and regulations require businesses like movie theaters to undertake actions "reasonably possible in the circumstances" to make their goods and services "accessible," and further define "accessible" as "usable or understandable."

Despite that clear language, the theater defendants claimed that they had no legal obligation to provide captioning. Judge Cahan rejected that argument in 2010. She then scheduled a trial limited to the question of what each of the defendants could reasonably be expected to do. Prior to the scheduled May trial date, two of the major corporate defendants -- Regal and Cinemark -- essentially surrendered, and agreed to equip all of their King County theaters to show closed-captioned movies. Subsequently, they agreed to full captioning on a nationwide basis.

The May trial was submitted based on stipulated facts. AMC would not commit to any specific level of captioning, saying only that it would increase the amount of captioning offered at its Seattle-area theaters. Regal and Cinemark argued that because they had fully equipped all of their theaters, there was no remaining legal controversy, and the case against them should be dismissed. (We had dismissed the three smaller defendants for various reasons).

We argued that even though Regal and Cinemark had done what we asked, the court should still enter a ruling to the effect that all theaters have legal obligations to be accessible to people with hearing loss. That was important to us because that ruling becomes a precedent that may be useful in other parts of the state, and because it would give us the ability to ensure that those theaters both live up to their commitments and perhaps incorporate future improvements in captioning technology.

With respect to AMC, we presented financial information showing that AMC can readily afford the cost of equipping all of its theaters to show captions once they convert their theaters to digital projection. Moreover, she noted that because Regal and Cinemark are providing full captioning, AMC had to demonstrate why it couldn't do the same, but that AMC had not provided any evidence suggesting that it was not financially able to do so. Therefore, the judge ruled that within 90 days of converting to digital projection, AMC must equip enough theater auditoriums with captioning equipment to enable it so show in captioned form all movies that come with captions.

The judge made one other very important and welcome observation. Defendants had submitted evidence to the effect that very few people were using the captioning equipment that Cinemark has installed at its theater complex in Federal Way. That does not matter, the judge said. "The issue is not how many patrons have used the technology provided, but rather, whether an individual with a sensory disability has the legal right to have access to the movies when technology is now present to allow that access without impeding on other patron's experience and it is feasible for the defendant to provide it."

We hope that in light of this ruling, AMC will join Regal and Cinemark in making movies fully accessible to individuals with hearing loss throughout the country. 

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Regal and CInemark, the nation's first and third largest theater chains respectively, have reaffirmed their commitment to full movie captioning, and have stated that the capability will be in place by the end of 2012.

Regal's announcement came in the form of a corporate press release dated May 4. That release appears to clarify what had previously been mixed signals. While Regal officials filed a declaration in our Washington lawsuit saying that Regal planned full captioning, the official corporate position articulated in official filings with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission had been that Regal was "considering its options." Evidently, that consideration led to a formal decision to provide full accessibility for patrons with hearing loss.

The announcement appears to apply to all Regal theaters, including those that Regal operates under the Edwards or United Artist nameplates.

The press release also noted that Regal will partner with Captionfish, the website that lists captioned and subtitled movies around the country, and which is becoming the go-to site for captioning information.

Regal is going to employ closed captioning, in which the captions are visible only to individuals that obtain and use a personal viewing device. In Seattle, the first market where Regal has completed installation of captioning equipment, Regal is testing special eyewear -- glasses that project the captions on the lens itself. Although somewhat ungainly lookling, the glasses have received very positive reviews from Wash-CAP members who have used them.

The closed captioning will substitute for the open-caption showings that Regal has offered at a few locations, and which some users prefer. The trade-off, though, is that instead of only a few locations and a few often-inconvenient show-times, the closed captioning will be available every day for all showings of all movies for which captions have been prepared by the studios.

Cinemark has also committed to full closed captioning. While Cinemark had already equipped all of the auditoriums at its Federal Way and Olympia multiplexes in Washington to show closed-captioned movies, the nationwide commitment came in the form of a press release issued last week. The press release announced the amicable resolution of a lawsuit filed in California by the Association of Late Deafened Adults and two individuals. I represented the plaintiffs in that action, in partnership with Disability Rights Advocates, a public-interest law firm in Berekely, California.

The captioning capability will be introduced as part of Regal and Cinemark's conversion to digital projection, in which traditional film ceases to exist, and the movies are reduced to digital data, transmitted either over the internet or on computer discs to the individual theaters. Captions can be included in that digital package. The captions are transmitted wirelessly from the projector/servers in each auditorium to the viewing devices.

Among the major theater chains, the holdout now is AMC, which has not yet committed to any particular amount of captioning. We think that will be a difficult position to maintain, especially in light of the commitments made by Regal and Cinemark. The first test of the legal soundness of AMC's position will come later this month, when we have final arguments in the lawsuit Wash-CAP filed against the major corporate theater chains in Seattle.

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Regal Cinemas, America's largest movie-theater chain, has made its first-run movie theaters fully accessible to people with hearing loss. Regal has equipped all auditoriums at its eight first-run King County multiplexes with the equipment necessary to show closed-captioned movies, and is now showing every movie for which captions have been prepared in captioned form.

By doing so, Regal has made Seattle America's most accessible city for movie-goers with a hearing loss such that they cannot understand the movie soundtracks even with the volume-enhancing assistive-listening devices that the theaters provide.

Unlike open captions, where the captions are superimposed on the movie print and visible to the entire audience, closed captions require patrons wanting the captions to pick up and use an individual viewing device provided by the theater.

Regal is experimenting with eyewear, special glasses that display the captions, which are sent to the glasses wirelessly. Wash-CAP members who have used the glasses have been very favorably impressed. They report that the viewer can match the depth of the captions to the viewer's place in the auditorium -- close, far or medium -- and at least for some movies can select a language other than English.

The glasses would seem to provide most of the advantages of open captioning, but because the captions do not alter the movie-going experience of other patrons, the captions are available for all showings. Regal had offered open-captioned movies in one auditorium at four of its King County multiplexes, but would only activate the captions for certain showings, which were generally at off-peak times. True, it's a minor hassle to pick up and return the glasses, and they are not fashion statements, but it's no bigger hassle than our hearing aids and CIs, which also open the world of sound to us.

Regal is taking the same approach to movie accessibility as Cinemark, the nation's third largest chain. Both have completed converting their King County theaters to digital projection, and after so doing, have provided full captioning capability. In so doing, those theaters have done everything Wash-CAP asked in a suit we filed in 2009 in King County Superior Court.

Regal and Cinemark have both stated publicly that they intend to make all of their first-run theaters across the country capable of showing captioned films. Cinemark has so equipped its only other Washington multiplex. Regal has not fully equipped its Washington theaters outside of King County, nor, to our knowledge, has it fully equipped many (if any) of its theaters outside of Washington, but we expect those companies will do so in the relatively near future.

While Regal and Cinemark have done what they can, that does not mean, unfortunately, that we can see every movie being shown at their theaters. For reasons we cannot understand, some studios still are not captioning all of their movies, even though the cost to do so runs as little as $2,000. Nor are 3-D movies captioned, even though the 2-D versions of the same movie may be. So the challenge now will be to persuade those reluctant studios to provide captions, especially with the likely proliferation of theaters equipped to use them.

Unfortunately, not every theater chain is following the lead of Regal and Cinemark. AMC theaters, America's second-largest chain, continues to take the position that it will equip some but not all of its theaters to show captions. We are currently in the process of addressing that question in our Seattle lawsuit, and would hope for a favorable ruling, a change in AMC's corporate position, or perhaps both.

We've waited a long time for our dream of meaningful access to movies to become a reality, but at least for Seattle audiences, it appears that the dream has come true. 

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Regal Cinemas, the nation's largest movie-theater chain, has committed that as it converts its first-run movie theaters to digital projection, it will provide the necessary equipment to display closed captions for all showings of all movies for which the studios have provided captions. Regal began that process in the greater Seattle area, where it has made all the auditoriums at its Auburn, Thornton Place, Landing and Bella Bottega complexes caption-capable.

As of today (Feb. 20), Regal is showing seven captioned movies at the Bella Bottega complex in Redmond, seven captioned movies at the Landing complex in Renton, eight at its complex in Auburn and ten at its Thornton Place complex in north Seattle.

The captioning pledge came in the form of a declaration from Regal chief operating officer Randy Smith submitted as part of Wash-CAP's ongoing litigation in King County, Washington, against the corporate theater owners that operate in the Seattle area. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in March of this year. Regal sought to avoid the trial by making a commitment to provide captioning.

Notably, Smith's statement did not just apply to the Regal theaters that are involved in the Seattle lawsuit. What he said was that as Regal converts theaters to digital projection, it will provide captioning capabilities, including at its Seattle theaters. The Seattle area appears to be the first location where this commitment has been implemented, at least in part.

Regal has in the past shown open captioned movies at a small number of its theaters. Regal believes that open captions, visible to the entire audience, are distracting and undesirable to hearing patrons. Therefore, it activates the open captioning only for a very few showings, generally at less-than-ideal times.

Closed captions are visible only to patrons who request and use a viewing device. Because closed captioning does not interfere with the movie-going experience of others, the theaters are willing to engage the captions for all showings.

Regal is apparently using a new device to show closed-captioned movies. The viewing device is attached to a gooseneck that fits into the seat cupholder. Unlike the more familiar Rear Windows system where captions are displayed in mirror image on an LED reader-board fixed to the rear wall of the theater and viewed on a reflector, the captions are transmitted wirelessly. This has the advantage of making the system equally usable from every seat in the theater, and it is also not subject to interruption if somebody stands up behind the viewer. The disadvantage,though, is that unlike the transparent Rear Window reflector that can be superimposed on the movie screen, the viewing device is solid. That means it has to be placed below or to the side of the screen, which means the captions and the movie are in different lines of sight, or the viewing device blocks some of the picture, not unlike the captions we seen on television.

Eyewear that displays captions is in the development stage. It is currently not available commercially, but may be developed and marketed in the future, and that may provide a better viewing experience than the devices that are now available.

At present, there is no well-developed technology for showing captions with 3-D movies, so most of the movies without captions at the Regal complexes are 3-D. Captions are provided by the studios, not by the theaters, and while most of the major-studio first-run releases are captioned, some are not, most notably (and ironically), "The King's Speech." So it appears to me that the Regal theaters that have provided full captioning capability are showing closed captions for all the movies that have captions available.

Regal is tying the provision of closed captioning to its program to convert its first-run theaters to digital projection, where film is replaced by digital data packages. Regal has converted all of its first-run theater complexes in King County to digital projection, and evidently plans to add captioning capability to the complexes in Issaquah, Bellevue, Tukwila and downtown Seattle that presently lack it.

Regal is following the same path as Cinemark/Century, the nation's third-largest theater owner, which has equipped all of the auditoriums at its two Washington complexes -- one in Federal Way and one in Olympia -- to show closed-captioned movies. Cinemark has essentially done everything we asked for in the lawsuit, and it appears the Regal will do so as well. We haven't received any specific information that Cinemark plans to equip its theaters in other parts of the country to show captions, but we would be surprised if they don't do that, because it would be difficult to explain how it was economically possible to offer full access in Washington but not possible to do so in other areas.

Lincoln Square in Bellevue has also committed to provide closed captioning in all of its theaters. In the interim, it is showing many of its movies with open captions at selected times.

The holdout new in our Seattle case is AMC, the nation's second-largest theater chain. It is taking the position that it should only be required to do what the federal Department of Justice may direct as part of the ongoing rule-making process. We don't think that is a viable argument. DOJ's proposal to require captioning for only 50% of the movies being shown at a given location has come under withering fire, and DOJ has provided at least some circumstantial indication that it will either jettison that proposal altogether or, at the very least, defer to court interpretations of what it is reasonable to expect each theater chain to do.

I'm aware that many of us with hearing loss would prefer open captioning. Unfortunately, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the implementing regulations make it quite clear that private businesses like theaters can choose the kind of accommodation they wish to provide, and the theaters have not been willing to provide open captioning, at least not for every showing. But there does not appear to be any legally viable way to require open captions.

I don't give up hope completely -- we may be able to persuade at least some theaters to voluntarily offer occasional open-captioned showings, perhaps upon request from some number of patrons. But rather than lament the absence of open captioning, I think we should direct our energies to working cooperatively with the theaters on finding the most effective means of showing closed-captioned movies.

The dominoes appear to be falling, and universal access to the movies may be a reality in very short order.

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