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

 Seattle Arts and Lectures has announced that it will caption the presentations of seven authors this year, including an expert on affordable health care, two Pulitzer-Prize winning literary authors and a well-known children's author who will appear in his adult incarnation.

The captioned offerings begin Tuesday, Oct. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in Seattle's Benaroya Hall with T.R. Reid, a former journalist and radio commentator who will talk about the dysfunctional health care system in the United States, where we spend far more money on health care than any other nation but rank a dismal 37th in effectiveness. Reid has spent years examining the health-care systems of other nations that produce better results for far less money, and will share his insights into what those countries can teach us.

On Tuesday, Oct. 19, the speaker will be Sarah Paretsky, author of the best-selling detective works featuring female protagonist V.I. Warshawsky. A one-time community organizer in Chicago, Paretsky has written extensively about women's rights and social-justice issues.

On Tuesday, Nov. 9, Daniel Handler will appear. While Handler has written a number of literary books and short stories for adults, his best-known writing has been as children's author Lemony Snicket, whose 13-book "Series of Unfortunate Events" has sold more than 50 million copies.

On Wednesday, Dec. 8, Picasso biographer John Richardson will speak. His appearance coincides with an exhibition of Picasso masterpieces at the Seattle Art Museum.

On Monday, Jan. 4 (of 2011), Pulitzer-Prize winner Elizabeth Strout will appear. She was awarded the Pulitzer in 2008 for Olive Kitteridge, a series of interconnected stories set in small-town New England.

Prolific author Joyce Carol Oates will appear Monday, April 18. Oates has published over 50 critically acclaimed novels and dozens of short stories.

The captioned season concludes Tuesday, May 10, with an appearance by Richard Ford, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Independence Day, the middle volume of a trilogy chronicling the fictional life of Frank Bascombe.

The captioned presentations are all in the Mark Taper Auditorium at Benaroya Hall. Because the author discussions and question-and-answer sessions are unscripted, the captioning is done in real time by a highly skilled captioner. The captions are displayed on an LED board visible from throughout the auditorium.

Because the captions are available from all seats, no special area is set aside for patrons who need to see the captions. Tickets are available at their regular price, and may be ordered on line.

This is the second season that SAL has captioned some of its author appearances, an effort it undertook at the request of the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP). We hope SAL will be able to expand their captioned offerings in the future to become fully accessible to people with hearing loss.

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 Seattle's three largest live theaters will make a total of 18 different productions accessible this season to those of us who have a significant hearing loss but do not use sign language. The season begins this Sunday, September 19 at The Paramount, which apologizes for the short notice, and runs through July 31 of 2011, and includes old favorites like "Guys and Dolls" and "Oklahoma," and newer productions like the award-winning "God of Carnage."

The captions are displayed on an LED reader-board placed at the edge of the stage. Seats are set aside on the lower level near the stage, so that it is possible to see the reader-board and the on-stage action without excessive looking back and forth. The captions, including the dialogue and song lyrics, are prepared in advance, and displayed in synch with the pace of the production, enabling people with (and many people without) a hearing loss to understand exactly what is being said. 

Best of all, the theaters almost always offer significantly discounted ticket prices.

Here is the schedule by theater:

The Paramount:

"Burn the Floor," Sunday, Sept. 19, 6:30 p.m.

"Hair," Saturday, Dec. 4, 8 p.m.

"Rock of Ages," Sunday, Feb. 13, 6:30 p.m.

"Billy Elliot," Sunday, April 3, 6:30 p.m.

"Mary Poppins," Sunday May 29, 6:30 p.m.

Tickets for the captioning area can be ordered on line. Go to the main page, click on the icon for the specific show, then go to the "read more" button following the description. Scroll to the end of that, and you will see the announcement of the open-captioned date and time. Continue following that link. When it takes you to the "purchase ticket" page, the only options that will be displayed are tickets in the captioned section.

Fifth Avenue:

"In the Heights," Friday, Oct. 8, 8 p.m.

"A Christmas Story," Sunday, Dec. 19, 7 p.m.

"Vanities," Friday, March 18, 8 p.m.

"Next to Normal," Wednesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m.

"Nine to Five," Wednesday, April 13, 7:30 p.m.

"Guys and Dolls," Sunday, June 5, 1:30 p.m.

"Oklahoma," Sunday, July 31, 1:30 p.m.

Tickets in the captioned section may be purchased on line by contacting the box-office email address,  ticketing@5thavenue.org

Seattle Repertory Theatre:

"God of Carnage," Thursday, Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m.

"Dancing at Lughnasa," Thursday, Nov. 18, 7:30 p.m.

"The Brothers Size," Feb. 2 (2011), 7:30 p.m.

"Of Mice and Men," March 24 (2011) 7:30 p.m.

"The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," May 5 (2011) 7:30 p.m.

Seattle Rep has devoted a special page to its captioned shows. Click on the ticket-order form, and it takes you to a diagram of the theater. When you then go to the button that allows you to see a diagram of the theater and select your seats, it limits you to only those seats from which the captioned reader-board is best seen.

This will the the third season that captioned live theater has been available in Seattle. The theaters have worked with the Washington State Communication Access Project and the Theatre Development Fund from New York to bring live theater to those of us whose hearing loss would otherwise prevent us from enjoying this art form.  

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Bainbridge Cinemas, a locally owned five-screen complex on Bainbridge Island, Washington, has agreed with the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) to begin showing closed-captioned films on a regular basis this fall.

Bainbridge Cinemas will equip one of its five auditoriums to show captioned films using the Rear Windows Captioning system. 

Once Bainbridge Cinemas installs the necessary equipment, it will rotate its films through that auditorium, so that patrons will be able to see two captioned films per week. This rotation plan should mean that most if not all of the movies that Bainbridge Cinemas shows and for which captions are available will actually be shown in captioned form during the first two or three weeks of a film's release. All showings will be captioned.

The captions are contained on a computer disc furnished at no charge to the theaters. The captioning is actually done by the Media Access Group at WGBH public television in Boston, which developed and patented the Rear WIndows system. Roughly 80% of the first-run movies released by the major studios are captioned.

The Rear Windows system displays the written dialogue in mirror image on an LED board mounted on the rear wall of the theater. Patrons wishing to view the written dialogue pick up a reflector -- a transparent plastic panel attached to a flexible gooseneck on a heavy base that fits into the cupholder. The reflector may be adjusted so that the captions appear to the viewer either below or superimposed on the screen, like subtitles. Because the captions are not visible to other patrons who are watching the screen, they do not interfere with the viewing experience of others. 

The theater will keep track of the number of people who request reflectors and their movie companions. We've devised a formula to estimate how much additional revenue the theater receives from installing the captioning equipment, and have agreed that until the theater has recovered the cost of the equipment and installation, we won't ask them to equip another screen for captioning.

The theater will indicate in all of its advertising and on its marquee which movies will be captioned, so that Bainbridge Island residents who want to see captioned movies can plan accordingly.

Personally, I'm delighted by this arrangement for a number of reasons. First and most obviously, I live on Bainbridge Island, and this means my wife and I can go to movies here rather than travel 30-40 minutes to a theater. On a broader scale, I think we've devised an accessibility formula that might prove workable for other small, independent theaters located in relatively isolated communities -- areas that the big theater chains don't serve. Lastly, I'm delighted and grateful that Bainbridge Cinemas is able to devote its limited resources to providing access rather than to a court battle.

Kany Lavine, Bainbridge Cinemas president, anticipates installing the equipment in time for the holiday movie releases that begin appearing around Thanksgiving. Prior to that time, we'll work with Bainbridge Cinemas to promote Bainbridge Cinemas generally and captioned movies specifically throughout our island community.   

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