Seattle's Paramount Theatre has agreed to expand its open-captioned performances to include its entire lineup of Broadway shows.
The captioned performance of Phantom of the Opera will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 1. The captioned performance of Spring Awakening will be Sunday evening, Oct. 19.
Paramount has not yet furnished us with information about ticket prices, or about the best way to order tickets. However, because it has posted the dates for the captioned performances, we want to let the hearing loss population of Washington know in time to make their plans. We will post another announcement immediately when we learn more details.
After considerable discussion with the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), Paramount offered what we believe to be the first open-captioned theater performance in Washington on August 10, when it offered a captioned performance of A Chorus Line.
The captions were prepared in advance, then displayed on a portable readerboard in synch with the performance. The captions were principally visible from the seats at the orchestra level on the right of the stage. Paramount reserved a block of seats for those who specifically requested seats where the captions would be visible, and over 50 people specifically asked for those seats.
Like Chorus Line, Phanton is a familiar part of the Broadway canon. Paramount's presentation of a captioned performance will make it accessible perhaps for the first time to those of us with hearing loss. Spring Awakening is a new production -- a rock-era reworking of an early 20th Century German drama about coming of age in a repressive society. It was a breakout hit on Broadway last year, and swept the Tony Awards.
We're hoping the audience for captioned theater continues to build. As one of the patrons at Chorus Line put it, "for the first time, when my family goes out for dinner after the show, I can be part of the conversation about the play." That statement reflects Wash-CAP's mission of enriching the lives not only of those of us with hearing loss, but of our families and loved ones, by enabling us to participate in the hearing world.
