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Help for Broadway's blind and deaf | News.com.au
FOUR Broadway productions will be fitted with technology that allows the blind and deaf to better enjoy them.
The services will be available at Tony-nominated musical "Catch Me If You Can," in early June (the production opened in April).
The speed of the effort is unusual: Producers typically wait until a show is financially secure before investing in the services, which cost about $35,000.
"The concern I hear is, 'We don't know how long we're going to last,'" said Carl Anthony Tramon, managing partner of Sound Associates, a sound design and systems provider that created the technology.
The not-for-profit Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts is jump starting the process.
The "philosophical goal" of the initiative "is that the person who has a disability should have the same experience as the person who does not," said Sharon Jensen, executive director at the Alliance, which was founded in 1986 to promote racial and cultural diversity, but has expanded to include people with disabilities in casting and audience-building.
For the tools to reach that goal, the Alliance partnered with G-PASS, which implements Sound Associates' systems, including D-Scriptive, a handheld device with one ear-piece through which the listener hears a pre-recorded audio script describing everything onstage as the show is taking place, and I-Caption, which delivers the text of the script-including character names-in tight synchronisation with the show on a polarized handheld screen.
Both evolved out of infrared technology originally used for ShowTrans, a device that Sound Associates developed in the late 1990s to interpret shows in several languages. D-Scriptive and I-Caption have been on the market for about a decade.
The Alliance's effort will allow the technology to be placed early in the runs of the four shows-at no cost to the producers. The other three shows have not been finalised.
The funding comes from a grant the Alliance received from the Theater Subdistrict Council, a not-for-profit within the city's Department of City Planning. The council administers a fund dedicated to giving grants to organisations with one of three goals: expanding audiences, encouraging new theatrical work or showcasing Broadway's history.
According to the Alliance, 1.1 million New Yorkers identify themselves as having a disability. And even if only a portion of that number are addressed with this particular technology, it said the impact can be significant. "It's not going to happen overnight because this audience has not been reached out to," said Jensen.
"It's a new way of thinking," said theatre producer Margo Lion, who worked with Jensen to bring the services to "Catch Me." "The most important thing is that it becomes common practice."
FOUR Broadway productions will be fitted with technology that allows the blind and deaf to better enjoy them.
The services will be available at Tony-nominated musical "Catch Me If You Can," in early June (the production opened in April).
The speed of the effort is unusual: Producers typically wait until a show is financially secure before investing in the services, which cost about $35,000.
"The concern I hear is, 'We don't know how long we're going to last,'" said Carl Anthony Tramon, managing partner of Sound Associates, a sound design and systems provider that created the technology.
The not-for-profit Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts is jump starting the process.
The "philosophical goal" of the initiative "is that the person who has a disability should have the same experience as the person who does not," said Sharon Jensen, executive director at the Alliance, which was founded in 1986 to promote racial and cultural diversity, but has expanded to include people with disabilities in casting and audience-building.
For the tools to reach that goal, the Alliance partnered with G-PASS, which implements Sound Associates' systems, including D-Scriptive, a handheld device with one ear-piece through which the listener hears a pre-recorded audio script describing everything onstage as the show is taking place, and I-Caption, which delivers the text of the script-including character names-in tight synchronisation with the show on a polarized handheld screen.
Both evolved out of infrared technology originally used for ShowTrans, a device that Sound Associates developed in the late 1990s to interpret shows in several languages. D-Scriptive and I-Caption have been on the market for about a decade.
The Alliance's effort will allow the technology to be placed early in the runs of the four shows-at no cost to the producers. The other three shows have not been finalised.
The funding comes from a grant the Alliance received from the Theater Subdistrict Council, a not-for-profit within the city's Department of City Planning. The council administers a fund dedicated to giving grants to organisations with one of three goals: expanding audiences, encouraging new theatrical work or showcasing Broadway's history.
According to the Alliance, 1.1 million New Yorkers identify themselves as having a disability. And even if only a portion of that number are addressed with this particular technology, it said the impact can be significant. "It's not going to happen overnight because this audience has not been reached out to," said Jensen.
"It's a new way of thinking," said theatre producer Margo Lion, who worked with Jensen to bring the services to "Catch Me." "The most important thing is that it becomes common practice."