In Prov­i­dence you can enjoy the the­atre with less than per­fect hearing.

Good news for any­one who’s enthu­si­asm for the the­atre has been curbed by dete­ri­o­rat­ing hearing.

The Trin­ity Reper­tory Com­pany has been suc­cess­ful in secur­ing the fund­ing nec­es­sary to pro­vide open cap­tion­ing for its per­for­mances in Prov­i­dence, accord­ing to a mail­ing list for The Rhode Island Com­mis­sion on the Deaf & Hard of Hearing.

The money came in the form of a grant from The The­atre Devel­op­ment Fund, from New York City, a gen­er­ous foun­da­tion which has pro­vided fund­ing to many live the­atres across the country.

The RI State Coun­cil of the Arts con­tin­ues to work toward pur­chas­ing cap­tion­ing equip­ment that will be avail­able for use by the var­i­ous the­aters in RI. But Trin­ity now has the money to pay for cap­tion­ing. After the “jump” (the read more link), you will find a sched­ule of open cap­tioned per­for­mances in the 2009–2010 season.

• Cabaret, Sun­day, Octo­ber 11, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Chace Theater
• Shoot­ing Star, Sun­day, Novem­ber 15, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Dowl­ing Theater
• A Christ­mas Carol, Sun­day, Novem­ber 29, 2009 at 12 Noon, Chace Theater
• Twelfth Night, Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 28, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Chace Theater
• Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Sun­day, March 21, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Dowl­ing Theater
• The Odd Cou­ple, Sun­day, May 9, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Chace Theater
• The Syringa Tree, Sun­day, May 30, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Dowl­ing Theater

Both Dowl­ing The­atre and Chace The­atre are located in The Led­erer The­atre Cen­ter, 201 Wash­ing­ton Street, Prov­i­dence, RI 02903.

You can read the full press release below:

Trin­ity Rep Announces Improved Access Mea­sures For Deaf & Hard of Hear­ing Audiences

The­atre Devel­op­ment Fund makes seven open cap­tioned per­for­mances possible

PROVIDENCE, RI: Trin­ity Reper­tory Com­pany is pleased to announce that it will part­ner with the The­atre Devel­op­ment Fund to offer seven open cap­tioned per­for­mances dur­ing the upcom­ing 2009–2010 sea­son. This state-​​of-​​the-​​art tech­nol­ogy will allow Trin­ity Rep to con­tinue in its mis­sion of pro­vid­ing the­ater access to a wider com­mu­nity by mak­ing per­for­mances acces­si­ble to patrons with hear­ing loss. Open cap­tion­ing will be pro­vided by c2 cap­tion­ing ser­vice, and will be avail­able for one per­for­mance of every show in the 2009–2010 Sea­son. Open cap­tion­ing seats are avail­able for $20, and a sea­son open cap­tion­ing sub­scrip­tion is also avail­able for $120. To pur­chase tick­ets, call (401) 351‑4242 (TTY RI Relay 1–800-745‑5555) or visit the Trin­ity Rep box office at 201 Wash­ing­ton St. in Providence.

“We are delighted that the open cap­tion­ing pro­gram is going to be avail­able for all of our shows next sea­son,” states Trin­ity Rep’s Artis­tic Direc­tor Curt Colum­bus. “It is our goal to erase any bar­ri­ers that keep peo­ple from expe­ri­enc­ing Trin­ity Rep, and this is one more way that we can open our doors to all audiences.”

The sched­ule for open cap­tioned per­for­mances in the 2009–2010 sea­son is as fol­lows: Cabaret, Sun­day, Octo­ber 11, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Chace The­ater; Shoot­ing Star, Sun­day, Novem­ber 15, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Dowl­ing The­ater; A Christ­mas Carol, Sun­day, Novem­ber 29, 2009 at 12 Noon, Chace The­ater; Twelfth Night, Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 28, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Chace The­ater; Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Sun­day, March 21, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Dowl­ing The­ater; The Odd Cou­ple, Sun­day, May 9, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Chace The­ater; The Syringa Tree, Sun­day, May 30, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Dowl­ing Theater.

“We’re thrilled to bring open cap­tion­ing to Rhode Island,” says Lisa Car­ling, Direc­tor of TDF Acces­si­bil­ity Pro­grams for The­atre Devel­op­ment Fund, the New York based not-​​for-​​profit orga­ni­za­tion that is spon­sor­ing open cap­tioned per­for­mances dur­ing Trin­ity Reper­tory Company’s 2009–2010 sea­son. “We’ve had great suc­cess expand­ing this acces­si­bil­ity ser­vice in New York, from Broad­way and Off-​​Broadway to shows across the coun­try! It’s won­der­ful to see the­ater become part of the lives of so many peo­ple with mild to severe hear­ing loss who were unable to attend prior to open captioning.”

Open Cap­tion­ing is a gen­eral term used to describe text dis­played simul­ta­ne­ous to live speech, dia­logue or per­for­mance. As opposed to closed cap­tion­ing, open cap­tions do not require the user to have any spe­cial equip­ment for view­ing the text and are always “open” to anyone.

c2 was formed in 2002 by David Chu and Don­ald DePew as a non-​​profit advo­cate to pro­vide and develop pro­fes­sional Live Per­for­mance Cap­tion­ing for the arts. Live Per­for­mance Cap­tion­ing com­bines tech­nol­ogy and tech­nique and is the stan­dard model for open cap­tion­ing in a performance-​​driven envi­ron­ment. To date, c2 has cap­tioned more than 800 the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions in over 180 venues.

Trin­ity Rep is fully hand­i­capped acces­si­ble, with ele­va­tor ser­vice to the Chace The­ater. Assis­tive Lis­ten­ing Devices (ALDs) are avail­able for all per­for­mances in the Chace and Dowl­ing the­aters. Upgraded, state-​​of-​​the-​​art infra-​​red ALDs are being installed for per­for­mances in the Chace The­ater, begin­ning with Cabaret. Addi­tional sup­port for Trin­ity Rep’s acces­si­bil­ity pro­grams comes from the Ida Bal­lou Lit­tle­field Memo­r­ial Trust, the Vigneron Memo­r­ial Fund, and Ocean State Char­i­ties Trust.

ABOUT TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY

Since its found­ing in 1963, Trin­ity Reper­tory Com­pany has been one of the most respected regional the­aters in the coun­try. Fea­tur­ing the last per­ma­nent res­i­dent act­ing com­pany in Amer­ica, Trin­ity Rep presents a bal­ance of world pre­miere, con­tem­po­rary, and clas­sic works for an esti­mated annual audi­ence of approx­i­mately 135,000. In its 45-​​year his­tory, the the­ater has pro­duced 57 world pre­mieres, mounted national and inter­na­tional tours, and, through its graduate-​​level the­ater arts con­ser­va­tory, trained hun­dreds of new actors and direc­tors. This sea­son marks the 43rd year of Project Dis­cov­ery, Trin­ity Rep’s pio­neer­ing edu­ca­tional out­reach pro­gram. Last sea­son, the pro­gram intro­duced 25,000 Rhode Island, Mass­a­chu­setts and Con­necti­cut stu­dents to live the­ater. The Brown University/​Trinity Rep Con­sor­tium offers pro­fes­sional train­ing for actors and direc­tors in a three-​​year MFA pro­gram. Trin­ity Rep’s sea­son presents six sub­scrip­tion pro­duc­tions and an annual pro­duc­tion of A Christ­mas Carol. The 2009–2010 Sea­son includes Cabaret by Joe Mas­teroff, John Kan­der and Fred Ebb; Shoot­ing Star by Steven Dietz; Twelfth Night by William Shake­speare; Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl; The Odd Cou­ple by Neil Simon and The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien. For more infor­ma­tion or to sub­scribe, call the box office at (401) 351‑4242 or visit Trin­ity Rep’s web­site at www.trinityrep.com.

ABOUT THE THEATRE DEVELOPMENT FUND

The The­atre Devel­op­ment Fund (TDF) has played a unique role in strength­en­ing live the­atre and dance in New York City for the past 40 years. This not-​​for-​​profit ser­vice organization’s pro­grams have filled over 72 mil­lion seats at dis­count prices (with the­atre lovers who would nor­mally not be able to attend live per­for­mance) and returned over 1.6 bil­lion dol­lars in rev­enue to thou­sands of the­atre, dance and music pro­duc­tions. Best known for its TKTS Dis­count Booths, TDF’s mem­ber­ship, voucher, access and edu­ca­tion pro­grams as well as its Cos­tume Col­lec­tion, help to make the unique expe­ri­ence of the­atre avail­able to every­one. For more infor­ma­tion, go to: www.tdf.org.

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