For the past 10 years, the charity STAGETEXT has been providing captioned performances in theatres across the country enabling deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people to enjoy a wide variety of plays, musicals and pantomimes. It also helps theatres to set up their own captioning service, and trains technicians and local captioners so they can deliver the service in house.
What are captions?
Captions are similar to television subtitles but include extra information that is helpful to deaf and hard of hearing audiences, such as character names, sound effects, offstage noises and musical descriptions. The captions appear on an LED screen (or screens), placed next to the stage or sometimes in the set, in 3 rows of 3” amber letters which scroll upwards as the action unfolds on stage.
A trained captioner prepares the captions in advance, ensuring they mirror the rhythm and flow of the actors’ performance. On the day of the captioned show, they cue the lines so that the words appear at the same time as the actors speak or sing, taking care not to pre-empt any jokes or important plot points. This means that deaf, deafened and hard of hearing audience members laugh or react at the same time as everyone else.
There are several short films on the STAGETEXT YouTube channel where you can see captioning in action (Captioned Performance at New Wolsey Theatre), An Introduction to STAGETEXT Captioning), plus feedback from deaf, deafened and hard of hearing theatregoers. You can find these at: http://www.youtube.com/user/stagetext
To join the free STAGETEXT mailing list to receive details of captioned shows around the country, email Rosie Holmes (rosie@stagetext.org) or take a look at the What’s On page on their website: www.stagetext.org/performance
Access to museums and galleries through live speech-to-text
STAGETEXT has recently launched a new Live Events Project which provides access to talks and lectures in museums and galleries through live speech-to-text transcription. Talks have recently taken place in London at the Royal Academy of Arts, National Gallery, Wellcome Collection, Transport Museum and, this autumn, the Hunterian Museum and Archives.
Statistics gathered after the talks indicated that 57% of the audience found the speech-to-text helpful, despite only 15% of the audience having declared themselves as deaf, deafened or hard of hearing at the time of booking.
One deaf visitor commented: “It was the first time I’d seen speech-to-text transcription and it was great. There were about six lines so you could look at the picture and not lose your place. This is the way forward in access to museums and galleries for deaf and hard of hearing people.”
Deepa Shastri, our Live Events Officer is working closely with a wide range of museums and art galleries to programme more accessible events. To receive details of future talks, please email: deepa@stagetext.org or keep an eye on the STAGETEXT website: www.stagetext.org
More information
STAGETEXT, First Floor, 54 Commercial Street, London E1 6LT.
Tel: 020 7377 0540 Textphone: 020 7247 7801 Email: enquiries@stagetext.org
Photograph shows deafened actor, Tim Barlow, as Tyblat in Romeo and his Juliet at the Bristol Old Vic. Photo: Mike Lusmore
