Theater Releases Captioning Details
After considerable prodding and a certain amount of nail-biting on our part, it appears that captioned theater will indeed make a Seattle debut when the Paramount Theatre offers an open-captioned performance of A Chorus Line on Sunday, Aug. 10, at 6:30 p.m.
The captions will be visible from the ground floor orchestra-right section. Here's a link to purchase tickets for that particular performance. (THIS IS NO LONGER OPERATIVE -- SEE SUBSEQUENT POST).
Since this is the debut of captioning, we can excuse some "opening night jitters." Nevertheless, this hasn't gone exactly smoothly. Paramount evidently didn't commit to the captioning until last week, and didn't post information on its website until today (July 16). It isn't clear whether Paramount has set aside a block of tickets in areas where the captions will be most visible, there is no special link on the website that lets us purchase those tickets, and there does not appear to be any price for the tickets except the normal (hefty) price for orchestra-section seats. So there is still a long ways to go before those who require captioning are treated on a par with folks who need an ASL-interpreted performance.
The best way to ensure that we have more captioned theater is to attend.
One of the objectives of the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) is to make live theater performances accessible throughout Washington to those who are hard of hearing or deaf, and particularly for the vastly under-served population that doesn't use sign language. This is one small step, but it is in the right direction.
