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 Paramount Theatre, which pioneered open-captioned performances in the Northwest, will offer three captioned productions in the next six weeks.

This Sunday, Jan. 24, at 6:30 p.m., the captioned production will be Xanadu, a roller-skating pop-rock confection best known as a 1980s movie starring Olivia Newton-John. The music comes from Jeff Lynne, the under-appreciated leader of the Electric Light Orchestra. (You'll recognize the tunes even if you don't recognize the name). Tickets are available on-line at a special price of $38.50.

On Valentine's Day, Sunday Feb. 14, again at 6:30 p.m., the captioned production will be Annie, the musical re-creation of the long-running comic strip about a red-headed moppet and her dog Sandy. It was the longest-running comic strip ever, and one of the longer-running shows on Broadway, logging well over 2,000 performances. Again, tickets are available on-line for $38.50.

Then on Sunday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m., Paramount will do a captioned version of Chicago, a musical originally choreographed by Bob Fosse which was made into an Academy Award-winning movie and which is now back on stage. Here's a link to on-line ticket-purchasing, and the price again is $38.50.

Paramount is offering two other Broadway musicals in the Spring -- Dreamgirls in April and Fiddler on the Roof in May. Dreamgirls, based essentially on the rise to fame of The Supremes, became a critically acclaimed movie starring Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson, while Fiddler is the much-beloved recreation of life in a Jewish shtetl in the last century. No word yet on whether those productions will have a captioned performance, but assuming Paramount adheres to the pattern of captioning the last Sunday evening performance, the dates would be April 11 for Dreamgirls and May 30 for Fiddler.

For the open-captioned performances, the captions are prepared in advance, and are displayed on a small reader-board placed in front of the stage on the right edge. Tickets purchased through the open-caption links will be in an area where both the captions and the on-stage action can be seen with minimal head-turning. Paramount began offering one captioned performance of each of its Broadway offerings in August of 2008 at the request of the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP). Since then, Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre have also begun offering captioned performances.

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Seattle's Paramount Theatre has changed the date for presenting the captioned versions of its Christmas show, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular  featuring New York's famous Radio City Rockettes.

The captioned performance will be Wednesday, Dec. 30, at 7:30 p.m. 

Tickets are available at a special price of $38.50. Here is a link for ordering the tickets on line. https://www.stgpresents.org/oc/radiocity.asp

For those of you who haven't yet attended a captioned theater performance, the dialogue and song lyrics are displayed on a portable reader-board placed in front of the stage. A block of seats is made available in an area of the theater that enables patrons to see both the on-stage action and the captions with minimal need to move our heads and eyes. The captions are prepared in advance, so they are error-free.

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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.

Tomorrow, Dec. 4, Seattle Repertory Theatre is offering a captioned performance of "Equivocation," a play in which Shakespeare is the principal character, not the author. King James has commissioned Shakespeare to write a play about a plot to assissinate the king, but when Shakespeare finds out that the "official" version of events isn't accurate, he has to choose between his artistic integrity or possibly his head. To ensure seats from where the captions will be visible, email the box office, boxoffice@seattlerep.org.

On Sunday, December 27, Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre will present a captioned performance of the holiday standby White Christmas, the Irving Berlin favorite. Fifth Avenue is offering tickets to the captioned performances for the special price of $37.50. Again, the best way to ensure that you'll be seated in the right spot is to email the Fifth Avenue box office, ticketing@5thavenue.org.

Finally, the New Year really will get kicked off on Jan. 3, 2010, when Seattle's Paramount Theatre presents the Rockettes and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at 5 p.m. It appears that Paramount has changed its website design, and in the process, we've lost the on-line order button for captioned performances. For now, other than calling or visiting the box office, the best bet for those of us who don't use telephones easily might simply be to contact Mason Sherry, the theater manager directly by email, masons@stgpresents.org. Mason has been a terrific supporter of Paramount's captioning efforts, and he will find a way to let us order online tickets.

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.

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After a year of correspondence with Wash-CAP, Seattle Arts and Lectures is making its popular Benaroya Hall presentations by prominent authors significantly accessible to patrons with hearing loss by captioning five of its 2009-10 events.

Captioned presentations include two Pulitzer Prize  winners, an award-winning screenwriter, two food-and-travel authors, and a medical journalist whose work is profoundly influencing the national debate about health-care reform.

The captioned schedule is as follows:

Oct. 7, 2009 -- Annie Proulx, Pulitzer-Prize winner for The Shipping News and author of Brokeback Mountain, a short story that became a much-praised and controversial movie.

Dec. 1, 2009 -- Richard Price, author of the novel Clockers, which bears a strong thematic resemblance to the award-winning HBO television series The Wire, to which Price contributed,  and screenwriter for many other movies.

Jan. 12, 2010 -- Jane and Michael Stern, food and travel writers devoted to America's back roads and to the unique and surprisingly excellent food one can find there.

March 9, 2010 -- Michael Chabon, Pulitzer-Prize winner for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and author of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, whose work consistently draws rave critical reviews.

May 3, 2010 -- Dr. Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon and journalist, whose writing on health-care costs and quality have gained wide influence inside the Obama Administration.

All lectures are at 7:30 p.m. at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle. Because the captions will be visible from throughout the auditorium, patrons who want to see the captions will have the same array of ticket prices and options as all other patrons.

Single-event tickets go on sale Aug. 24. We have asked SAL to consider offering a season subscription to all of the captioned events.

SAL's decision to make the captions visible to all raises an interesting question. On the one hand, we appreciate being able to sit wherever we choose. On the other hand, because of the equipment required, universally visible captioning is considerably more expensive than captioning visible from only a portion of the auditorium, meaning that fewer events can be captioned. So the question is, which is better? We hope to get some feedback on that question as we work with SAL to plan future seasons.

By adding captions to its array of accommodations, SAL joins Seattle's Paramount, 5th Avenue and Seattle Repertory Theatres, as well as the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks, in making its offerings available to those of us who have a significant hearing loss but who communicate orally rather than through sign language. Those captioning efforts have been instigated at the request of and in cooperation with the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) in furtherance of Wash-CAP's objective of making Washington State a national model of accessibility for people with hearing loss. 

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Seattle Repertory Theatre will make much of its 2009-10 season accessible to people with hearing loss by offering captioned performances of its four at the Bagley Wright Theatre, Rep's main stage.

The productions and caption dates are:

39 Steps -- Thursday, Oct. 1

Equivocation -- Thursday, Dec. 3

Glengrarry Glen Ross -- Thursday,  Feb. 11

Fences -- Thursday, April 1

Tickets will go on sale Aug. 21. Seattle Rep marketing director Katie Jackman plans to send us an email link that we can post on this website to enable them to keep track of how many ticket purchases come from our readers and members.

The caption-area tickets will cost $35 each, significantly less than Rep's normal pricing of $41 to $48 for seats in that area.

Seattle Rep joins Seattle's Paramount and 5th Avenue theaters in offering one captioned performance of each of its dramatic productions. The captions, prepared in advance, are displayed in synch with the performance on a portable reader board. All three theaters have engaged c2net out of Boston to do that captioning.

Rep's initiation of captioning comes in response to requests from the Washington State Communication Access Project, and is one more small step towards our objective of making Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss. Wash-CAP was also responsible for instigating the captioned performances at Paramount and 5th Avenue.

Seattle Rep's captioning program is being funded in part by a grant from the Theatre Development Fund from New York City, which has also provided start-up funding for Paramount and 5th Avenue. Three of TDF's eight access grants this year have gone to Seattle theaters, a focus that TDF Accessibility Programs Director Lisa Carling says is the result of Wash-CAP's advocacy within the Puget Sound theater community.

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Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre this week released its schedule of captioned performances for the 2009-10 season.

The first captioned performance will be "Catch Me If You Can," a new musical version of the Leonardo di Caprio movie based on the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction biography of Frank Abegnale, an imposter-embezzler who used his gift of gab to pose as a professional in a number of fields, and made off with millions in the process.  The captioned performance will be Wednesday, August 12, at 7:30 p.m.

The rest of the schedule is:

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," Friday, Oct. 23, 8 p.m.

"White Christmas," Sunday, Dec. 27, 1:30 p.m.

"South Pacific," (the revival by Intiman Theatre's Bartlett Sher that won seven Tony Awards), Saturday, Feb. 20, 2 p.m.

"Legally Blonde," another movie-turned-musical, Friday, March 5, 8 p.m.

"On the Town," Friday, April 23, 8 p.m.

"Candide," Wednesday, June 2, 7:30 p.m.

Fifth Avenue is undertaking captioned performances at the request of the Washinton State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership corporation whose goal is to make Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss. The captioning arrangement will be very similar to Seattle's Paramount Theatre -- a portable reader-board will be placed to one side of the stage, and the captions will be scrolled in synch with the performance.

Fifth Avenue will sell two tickets to the captioned section at a discounted price of $37. Buyers of those discounted tickets can buy two additional tickets at the regular price.

Season subscriptions to the captioned performances are available. You can get the details on the "Accessibility" page of Fifth Avenue's website, http://www.5thavenue.org/accessibility/.

For those who can't attend the special captioned performances, Fifth Avenue will offer scripts in illuminated binders at all performances.

Fifth Avenue joins Seattle's Paramount Theatre in becoming accessible to people with significant hearing losses by offering one captioned performance of each of its Broadway-type productions. Paramount's schedule for the remainder of 2009 is available on a prior post.

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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.

I suggested to the Intiman managers that rather than everyone making separate applications for a finite pot of money, the theaters apply jointly for a grant that would support captioning for both. I also suggested they consider forming a consortium to buy the equipment and recruit and train a captioner -- an approach that theaters in England have used to make theater captioning far more common there than here. (We had also raised this possibility with TDF itself, and the feedback we got was that Seattle might be an attractive place to try out this joint approach).

In the interim, Intiman is going to reserve scripts and penlights that will be available on request beginning this Friday, April 24.

Meanwhile, Seattle's largest theater, the Paramount, has released its schedule of captioned performances for 2009. "Frost/Nixon" will be captioned on May 10, "Rent" on June 21, "Wicked" on September 27, "August: Osage County" on November 1 and "Fiddler on the Roof" on November 29.  Tickets for the captioned performances will be available on line.

The Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership corporation dedicted to making Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss, began working with (or on, depending on your point of view), Seattle's live theaters a year ago to make their offerings available to us through captioning. At Wash-CAP's behest, the Paramount began captioning last August, and has now offered captioned performances of six Broadway musicals. Seattle's other large theater, Fifth Avenue, will begin presenting captioned performances in the fall of 2009, and we are working now to expand the use of captioning into some of our smaller venues.

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The Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) and Seattle Fifth Avenue Theatre have amicably resolved their lawsuit, and signed off on a settlement that will bring captioned theater to that venue beginning this season.

The agreement calls for Fifth Avenue to offer at least one captioned performance of each of its seven productions during the 2009-10 season. Because Fifth Avenue has not finalized its schedule of productions, it hasn't identified dates for the captioned performances. However, the agreement calls for at least some captioned performances to be on the weekend, and some to be during the evening. Fifth Avenue will offer season subscriptions to the captioned performances. Fifth Avenue will set up a specific link on its website to order tickets for the captioned performances.

Wash-CAP and Fifth Avenue tentatively agreed to such a resolution last August, and have been working out the mechanics and the details since.

Fifth Avenue will continue to offer Assistive Listening Devices, which benefit patrons with mild hearing losses, and lighted scripts for patrons with more serious losses. Those will be offered at all performances. The combination of lighted scripts and captioned performances, along with sign-language interpreted performances, makes Fifth Avenue the most accessible live theater in Western Washington.

At Wash-CAP's request, Seattle's Paramount Theatre began offering one captioned performance of each of its Broadway-type offerings beginning last August, and has presented four captioned performances to date. The captions, containing both dialogue and notations about sound effects, are prepared in advance and presented in synch with the performance by c2net of Boston, which will also caption the Fifth Avenue shows.  

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We received the 'official' word today from Paramount that the captioned performance of Phantom of the Opera will take place Wednesday, Oct. 1, and that the captioned performance of the recent Tony-winning sensation Spring Awakening will be on Sunday, Oct. 19. Special ticket prices will be offered for both performances.
 
I've attached the press release from Paramount announcing plans to caption their full season of Broadway offerings. You will note that Wash-CAP isn't mentioned, but that's fine -- if we get the results, we'll happily let the folks who are doing as we ask take the credit.
 
Here are the links we can use to purchase our tickets for the two shows.
 
https://purchase.theparamount.com/accessible/phantom.asp
https://purchase.theparamount.com/accessible/springawakening.asp
 
We hope to see everyone there Wednesday and again on the 19th -- and tell all your friends as well. The best way to ensure the future of captioned theater in Seattle is to patronize the performances.
 
 

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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. 

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After initially pleading poverty, and after Wash-CAP filed a court action, Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre has now agreed tentatively that it will offer captioned performances beginning in the 2009-2010 season.

5th Avenue, which chiefly offers Broadway-type musicals, had said on several occasions that captioning would constitute an "undue burden," and was therefore not required under either state or federal law. That answer was unacceptable to us in light of the fact that 5th Avenue's annual budget is over $19 million, and 5th Avenue said captioning one performance of each of its seven seasonal productions would cost "almost" $14,000. Our view was that if spending that amounts to less than one-tenth of one percent of the annual budget is an "undue" burden, then captioning would never be warranted.

After we filed suit, though, 5th Avenue said it would offer captioned performances (at least one per production) starting in 2009. While we couldn't understand exactly why the theater couldn't begin offering captions immediately, the practical reality was that our trial date wasn't until January of 2010, so 5th Avenue was offering us more than we could get in court. That being the case, we agreed in concept, believing that an imperfect compromise made more sense than a "perfect" trial.

There are still some details to be negotiated, but the attorneys for 5th Avenue have indicated that they don't believe those details will be insurmountable.

Before suit was filed, 5th Avenue had agreed to provide scripts in lighted binders, which will let those with hearing loss read along with the performance. While we thought that was a significantly less useful accomodation than real-time captioning, it is better than nothing. We have asked 5th Avenue to continue offering the lighted scripts, giving hearing-impaired patrons the option of either attending the designated captioned performance(s), or attending a different performance using the lighted scripts. We believe that combination will make 5th Avenue one of the more accessible theaters in the country for people with hearing loss.

Wash-CAP continues its focus on live theaters in Washington. We are continuing to work with The Paramount Theatre and with the various venues at Seattle Centre, where captioned performances have been offered in the past at our request. We will update this website as future captioned performances are confirmed.

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Captioned theater made its Washington State debut Sunday evening, Aug. 10, when Seattle's Paramount Theatre presented a captioned version of A Chorus Line.

The captions, provided and operated by the Caption Coalition (c2net) of Boston, were displayed on a portable message board set up in front of the stage in synch with the performance. David Chu, founder and CEO of c2net, was on hand to personally oversee the preparation and display of the captions. Paramount Theatre set aside a generous block of 80 tickets in the right-orchestra section of the theater, from where the captions were clearly visible.

Despite less than a month's notice, summer vacations and little public advertising (other than what we were able to do on this website and through Washington's hearing-loss organizations), we had over 50 people request seats in the caption area. Paramount Theatre manager Mason Sherry said afterwards that he thought the performance went well, and seemed optimistic about future captioned performances.

The news from Seattle's other major theater, though, has not been good. 5th Avenue Theatre, which bills itself as Seattle's largest theatrical employer, has declined to provide captioned performances, claiming that doing so would constitute an "undue burden." 5th Avenue said that captioning one performance of each of the seven productions it presents in any one season would cost $14,000, and it claims that it can't make room in an annual budget of some $19 million to provide for captioning.

If captioning were declared to be an "undue burden," 5th Avenue would not be required to provide it. However, in order to claim that providing an accommodation like captioning constitutes an undue burden, the facility must show that it can't reduce expenses, can't expect a revenue increase from the expected new audience, can't raise enough revenue by increasing admission charges to everyone, and can't find a sponsor.

Because 5th Avenue did not provide any information to substantiate its claim that captioning would constitute an undue burden, the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) filed suit last week in state court in Seattle. Our complaint did not ask for money damages, but asked that 5th Avenue provide captioned performances like the performance provided by Paramount. Trial is not scheduled to occur until January of 2010, but we hope to work out a settlement with 5th Avenue well before that date.

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We've been in constant touch with Seattle's Paramount Theatre representatives over the last 24 hours. We're happy to report that what was yesterday a pretty chaotic situation (which chaos was responsible for yesterday's semi-snarky post) has now been clarified, and it now appears that captioned live theater will indeed be available to Seattle audiences.

Paramount is setting aside 40 tickets for the captioned performance of A Chorus Line on Aug. 10 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are available in that block at a discounted price of $38.

To get those tickets, call the Paramount box office at 206-467-5510 and state that you want tickets in the caption section. You can also use the Ticketmaster TTY line, 800-725-6244. Given the brief time between now and the performance, it hasn't been possible to arrange for on-line purchases of these tickets with Ticketron.

Anyone who pulled the trigger yesterday based on the information that was then available (including me) and bought tickets outside the caption section can exchange them by mailing the physical tickets back to Paramount, and explaining that they were purchased outside the caption section before learning about the block-seating arrangement..

Like many theaters, Paramount does have assistive listening devices (ALDs), and does offer sign-language interpreted performances. Unitl now, though, they have offered nothing for those of us who don't hear well enough to follow dramatic dialogue or sung lyrics even with the ALDs, but who don't use sign language. We've found that there is relatively little awareness that people in that hearing "gap" exist as a distinct group with distinct requirements which are very different from the needs of the culturally deaf, who use sign language.

We're hoping for a great turnout, and that this will be the first of many captioned-theater experiences in Seattle.

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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.

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Seattle's huge Paramount Theatre will offer a captioned performance of A Chorus Line in August of this year. That's a step in the right direction, even though it may be small and somewhat half-hearted.

When we get the exact date, we'll post that information on this site, and prod Paramount to post it on its website as well. Nothing will do more to spread the availability of captioning than a good turnout from the hearing-loss community.

Paramount's offer came in response to correspondence I have been conducting over the last several months with Paramount and with other Seattle theaters. I've been trying to make then aware of the unique needs of those of us in the hearing-loss community who do not use sign language, and especially those of us non-signers whose hearing loss is such that Assistive Listening Devices don't let us fully understand dialog and song lyrics.

I've referred to this group as the Significantly Hard of Hearing or SHOH, and I define that group specifically as those who don't gain full enjoyment of a performace through ALDs, but who do not sign, and therefore derive no benefit from ASL-interpreted performances. I've said that the SHOH require captioning in order to enjoy a theatrical performance.

The news from Paramount is not all good. Paramount says that it will seek feedback on the captioned performance from "the deaf and SHOH community." Paramount still makes the basic mistake of looking at us as one unified community. While we may have similar interests and similar sensory challenges, the accommodations we require are very different.

As I have pointed out to Paramount, asking those groups what they want is a waste of time. I'm absolutely certain that when you ask the culturally Deaf what accommodations they need, the answer will be, "ASL-interpreted performances," and if you ask the SHOH, the answer will be "captions." Just as it makes little sense to ask the SHOH to comment on the quality of an ASL-interpreted performance, it also makes little sense to ask the Deaf about the quality or adequacy of captions.

Ever the optimist, I'm hopeful that Paramount's response comes from naivete rather than from a deliberate effort to pit to groups against each other. In any event, the offer of a trial captioned performance is a step in the right direction, even if it might be a small and half-hearted step.

Rather than continuing to advocate as an individual for access to public facilities, my future work in this area will be undertaken in cooperation with the Washington State Communication Access Project, or Wash-CAP. I invite you to learn more about Wash-CAP, and join our efforts to open Washington's public places to those of us with hearing loss.

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Television captioning has been a godsend for those of us with significant hearing losses. The captioning makes television instantly accessible, and means that for all its faults, television is something we can fully enjoy ourselves, and is an experience we can share with our spouses and families.

Once in a while, though, it would be nice to do something different, like a play. We go along, but when we can't hear what's going on, it's not all that great for us ... and it isn't so great for the people we're with, either.

It doesn't have to be like this. Spoken dialog or sung lyrics can be reduced to text, letting us "hear" along with the rest of the audience. What's said or sung can be captioned in real time or in advance, and the captions displayed to some or all of the audience. For theaters that can't afford those elaborate electronic devices, hard-of-hearing patrons could be provided with a script and a penlight at virtually no cost.

There is no reason why every theater can't make every performance accessible to those with hearing loss. Continue reading this post to find out how we're progressing on this issue.

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