3 minute read
A deaf-led charity making the arts accessible for all
12 million people in the UK are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing. That means one in five of us rely on subtitles and captions to experience the joy of live theatre, to take guided tours around museums, or to see our favourite authors speak at festivals.
Stagetext makes those experiences possible, and their CEO Melaine Sharpe, spoke with us about their groundbreaking history and exciting future plans.
We were set up more than 20 years ago by three friends, all with different types of deafness, who attended the first ever captioned show in the UK, Anthony and Cleopatra at the Barbican in 1999. This first experience of what accessibility could look like unlocked something wonderful. They wanted to share their transformative experience with deaf audiences all over the country and realised they would probably need to take matters into their own hands and do it themselves.
Using our two decades of experience, we employ the latest technology and set the highest standards in access, to give everyone a complete and equal experience of the arts.
Last year, Stagetext worked with 238 cultural organisations across the UK and made over 1,100 performances, talks, tours and digital works accessible.
We use bespoke software developed specifically for captioning which controls dot matrix LED caption units housed on large screens, so all audience members can enjoy the show alongside each other. For live performances such as theatre shows we use pre-prepared captions which are then cued live by a theatre captioner. For Q&A’s and other unscripted events, a speech-to-text reporter will create live subtitles in real-time.
We’ve also teamed up with museums like the Wellcome Collection and the V&A, and even Buckingham Palace, to provide training and support in their efforts to increase access to the arts. We help with live captioning on tablets for exhibition tours and we provide captions for their online events, talks and videos.
Our work enables deaf people to engage in the arts with their friends and family and have an equal experience to those around them. It can be life changing. When I first experienced theatre with captions it was such a transformative experience. I used to get headaches or zone out sometimes when I couldn’t follow what was being said, so this brought me back to the room and enabled me to fully enjoy theatre again.
We have captioning awareness week coming up on 13-17 November. We are still in planning mode at the moment, but we usually have lots of captioned events across the UK to celebrate and raise awareness of the need for more captions at arts and cultural events.
Excitingly, we’ve just moved from London to our new home at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester. We’ll be working closely with a wide range of cultural and heritage organisations in the region, so that more people can enjoy being part of the thriving arts scene on offer in the South East. By joining forces with the Mercury, both organisations will work together to put access at the heart of our creative processes and everything we do.
Find out more about Stagetext at www.stagetext.org
You can also explore their What’s On guide for captioned events around the UK at www.stagetext.org/whats-on
