Regional Theatres have a coded and codified covenant to facilitate their productions for disabled audiences.  It’s easy to add a wheelchair ramp.  It’s simple to provide listening devices for the Blind.  The accessibility question is much more complicated to solve when it comes to serving Deaf audience members.  There are several methods regional theatres can employ to pull in Deaf audiences.  The first, and clearest, example is to include Deaf actors in your productions.  You don’t have to have a 100% Deaf cast, but a few Deaf cast members will deepen the emotional pool of any play.  The actual character doesn’t have to Deaf; in your production, the character will just happen to be Deaf and sign, or not — and voice — or not.  The richness of a Deaf actor on stage is worth the added conflict and catharsis the disability brings to the in situ life of the overall performance.

Continue reading → How Regional Theatres Can Facilitate Deaf Theatre Audiences