Access takes center stage

Lauren Hafeman, Isthmus

Heather Perkins gestures to a stool in a booth that overlooks Overture Hall. That’s where she sits, microphone in hand and stage notes nearby, when providing audio description during select performances.

Audio description — the art of pictorially explaining aspects of a performance that cannot be conveyed through performers’ voices — is designed for guests who are blind or have low vision, enabling them to experience performances much like sighted guests.

Perkins welcomes patrons using audio description in the lobby before the show and guides them to their seats. There they put on headsets and Perkins heads to her booth. Fifteen minutes before show time, Perkins shares pre-show notes on the story outline, stage sets and characters. During the show, she describes costume and set changes, characters’ movements and facial expressions.

Perkins says guests who are blind or have low vision would likely miss when an actor engages in physical comedy, like tripping or making a funny face. Part of her job is to describe those movements so guests using audio description are prompted to laugh with the rest of the crowd, though Perkins says any action that elicits audience reaction is important to narrate.

“If an actor looks heartbroken or leaves the stage in tears, [guests who are blind or have low vision] are not going to know because it’s not something they can hear,” says Perkins. “I describe anything that moves the audience.”

Audio description is one of the many services arts organizations in the Madison area are offering to broaden access to the arts. Children’s Theater of Madison, Forward Theater Company and American Players Theatre, like Overture, provide a variety of experiences and tools for people with disabilities to feel welcome and participate in the arts.

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