Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us D. Raghunandan and we are going to discuss the UK elections. This has been a very strange election because after all Theresa May had a majority and she would have run for another three years with this government. Her whole idea was that she would get a bigger majority. That has not happened. So do you think that she is going to pay the price for this? This morning it was beginning to look as if she would. Although now the Conservative Party seems to have come around to saying let's go with what they see as a lesser of two evils. And rather than rock the boat again and have another election inside the Conservative Party to decide who is going to lead it and have a further division inside the Conservative Party which will just add more chaos. I think they have decided to go with the bad bargain, continue with Theresa May until the elections is over. But what this means basically I think is that there is no chance now of Theresa May leading the Conservative Party at the next elections. Or even more than six months possibly. But leaving that aside this election has been a root shock to the Conservatives who are initially they had something like a 20% lead. We are talking about 100 plus majority over the Labour Party and a huge commanding lead in the parliament is only reason for being able to negotiate Brexit better. Now you are going to get a weak government. You are going to get a government which is really hanging on by its teeth by virtue of a coalition with the Ulster unionists not exactly the best of people to have with you. And with this now the whole argument for Brexit being negotiated more strongly has gone. She is in a weaker position vis-a-vis Europe. She does not have the stronger mandate that she was demanding. She has a weaker mandate at home and whatever she negotiates with Europe now she is in a weaker position domestically to implement those policies because clearly the domestic mandate is for less austerity, more public spending goes against the basic Conservative ideas as well as the lines along which the Conservatives were thinking of negotiating with the Europeans. The second thing I think is that this puts paid to the idea of a hard Brexit. The Conservatives will now have their arms twisted in a different direction. They cannot go the way Theresa May was arguing for because they will be in a weaker position both vis-a-vis Europe and domestically. I think the biggest miscalculation was as you rightly said having a majority already in place but looking for a much bigger majority playing on what the opinion polls said was an extremely weak Labour opposition and thinking to capitalise on that. But now having gone into the election finding out that she has handed Labour and Jeremy Corbyn in particular a great brand image which they didn't have before these elections. That brings up the most important result for Labour. Jeremy Corbyn has really strengthened this position enormously vis-a-vis all those who are attacking him. He came on the back of a Labour majority within the party of younger people, people who had come in to rejuvenate Labour as it were but resisted tooth and nail by the parliamentary party and what would be called the Labour establishment at that point of time. What people are saying is the Blair rights. He has effectively demolished them in this election and has really brought out that Labour has to shift back to the left, it has to get an electoral base and he has been able to attract a huge amount of support from essentially the youth. There are just two points I would like to mention on this. One is certainly Corbyn has confounded his critics. His critics on the Labour right, his critics in the media, his critics among the political pundits all of whom had written off Jeremy Corbyn had described him as the weakest leader Labour had ever had and of being the biggest obstacle to Labour re-emerging in the mainstream of British politics and he has shown all these arguments to be wrong that he has in fact been able to rejuvenate the Labour party which the Blair rights were not able to do. He has brought the youth back to Labour. I think this has been because Jeremy Corbyn forced a repositioning of the central debate of this election. Theresa May wanted this election to be about how do we exit from the European Union. Jeremy Corbyn transformed this from that debate of what kind of Brexit will we have to what kind of Britain will we have and the debate therefore changed to what kind of domestic policies do we have, what happens to social service, what happens to public spending and he refocused issues on this and the British public has veered around to his point of view and particularly if you look closer at the results a large section of the working class which had shown signs of drifting towards UKIP have come back. Another part is the Scottish National Party seems to have fared relatively badly. They have lost both to Conservatives and to Labour. What do you think this indicates? As far as the SNP is concerned I think the Scottish electorate, this is true of the British electorate as a whole has been quite tired of having elections forced on them and the Scottish electorate was even more scared that a very strong mandate for the SNP would mean another referendum. In Scotland I think this is partly the reason for the Scots not wanting an extremely strong presence but on a more serious note I think the results that we saw which gave the SNP virtually a 100% of the seats in Scotland the last time around were also freakish. I think one should accept that they were freak results and one should not compare the present election results using that as a baseline. Coming to the other issue that you talked about today, the Corbyn and Labour. Essentially Corbyn was being challenged inside the Labour Party and as you know Corbyn was always the outsider, supported peace, supported all forces against the armed intervention, supported the Palestine liberation struggle, supported that we should end occupation of Israel. All of these issues now is what was unthinkable for the British political centre as it were. Corbyn has been a part of that. Do you think that this would also mean a new relook for British foreign policy particularly with respect to and military adventures in West Asia? It may, it may not and the reason I am saying it may not is because I think Jeremy Corbyn has done a tremendous job at these elections in restoring the centrality of the left to Labour politics and prevented Labour from shifting further to the right. They've got 262 seats in parliament now which I think was inconceivable just a few months ago but 262 is still not 326 and there are many even within the Labour left who concede today that in order to get back into a winning proposition Jeremy Corbyn will also have to embrace sections of the Blairite Labour in order to cross that threshold which at the moment at least he seems to have difficulty in being able to. Maybe time will tell and maybe he will be able to engineer a movement further to the left. But after the attacks in Manchester and also London, he's the only politician who stood up and said this is because of what we have done ourselves in Libya, this is what we have done in West Asia and also focusing on reduction of health services means that you could not handle emergencies, reducing policemen you could not really monitor the people you needed to. So his attack on what happened, particularly on Theresa May who is the Home Secretary, was also very different from a mainstream politician in England who generally have always cited saying let's all close ranks, these are very bad people from outside who are doing all this, we have nothing to do with it. And the first time recognition that the UK was responsible for what happened in Libya and also part of the blowback, however reprehensible the bombing in Manchester or London bridge attack was. The point is there is also a complicity of having fostered this. Jeremy Corbyn is the only leading UK politician who ever said this. Absolutely right. And Jeremy Corbyn has been the only politician to have said this, maintaining his own record of being the longest lasting outsider in British politics. In fact the Labour has shifted away from his position since he had come back partially to the position that Labour occupied for a long time at least in the 40s and 50s. Just on the last note you remember Jeremy Corbyn was in India for the social forum which both you and I were involved and his speech is not very different from what he is saying today. So Jeremy remains where he was. It's really the British politics which seem now partially combatic. Would you accept this is a genuine assessment of what is happening? Yes I think so. I think Jeremy Corbyn has re-established the positions that the left of the Labour Party used to take. The point that you made I think is right. People have overestimated the tendencies in European politics of what was perceived to be a shift to the right. They were really a movement of frustration of the people and if the right were voicing some of those concerns then they shifted to the right. But if there was a strong voice on the left then I think we would see the people moving back. This content of globalisation being tapped by the right in absence of the left and Jeremy Corbyn has shown that this is possible. Thank you very much Chirgu for being with us. This is all the time we have today for NewsClicks this episode. Keep watching NewsClicks for further episodes and also watch us on YouTube.


Now let's go back to this distinction between system one and system two. Now earlier on you gave us a few examples that come effortlessly to us.  But there are groups of people that we call experts who can do some pretty amazing feats effortlessly, tasks that you and I would find difficult as novices. So for example, chess experts can identify and remember just thousands of chess moves and they can quickly decide what the next move is. Way better than novices. Radiologists, medical examiners can put two mammograms, two breast screens side by side on the screen and just in the blink of an eye can tell you whether a person has cancer or not. There's another example that you and I have worked on for fingerprint experts. So again, if you put two fingerprints side by side on the screen to a fingerprint expert, they can in a blink of an eye tell you whether those prints came from the same person or two different people. Right, so I mean it's this idea of expertise which I think is really quite interesting from a systems perspective. So when you're talking about chess experts or diagnosticians, these things which were system two is now system one. So when the diagnostician, the radiologist is looking at a breast scan, they can tell as you said within 250 milliseconds whether the scan is normal or abnormal. Now obviously that didn't happen overnight. They can't just look at it without knowing anything about a breast scan and so they need to know what they're looking for but after they've accumulated thousands of experiences with that particular class of materials, then it becomes a system one process, then it feels like it's just birth equipment, like it's just happening to them. So that's kind of hallmark of expertise. Now we talked earlier about pupil dilation. Well the same thing actually happens. Imagine, so going back to the example that I provided before in terms of driving. Now the same thing happens when you're learning how to drive for the first time. If I were to measure the pupil dilation of a novice driver, imagine all of the things that they have to pay attention to when you're learning how to drive. Particularly if it's a manual transmission, the friction point of the clutch, you have where the pedestrians are, where your indicators are, everything else. They're paying attention to a million things at once and if I were to measure the pupil size of the novice driver, they'd be like saucers, wouldn't they? But as you learn how to drive, these things just get easier and easier. As you accumulate hours at the wheel, eventually after 10 or 20 years of driving, you're eating a sandwich, you're carrying on a conversation, you're talking on the phone, you're swerving between traffic, watching, but it's like breathing. It feels like an extension of you, if anything. It's truly a System 1 process. If you were to measure the size of the pupils of the expert driver, they'd be just tiny by comparison to the novice driver. I think that's a really nice example of, again, the difference between System 1 and System 2 and how that develops as you develop expertise. Another really good example is faces. We're all experts with faces and if we were to show people upright faces, you have all of these sort of tasks that you can instantly recognize whether it's male, whether it's female, even who the person is and that's only because we have experience with upright faces that we've experienced our entire lives. But if we turn the faces upside down, then it's a completely different story. People are not good at recognizing upside down faces, so much so that there's a whole bunch of different demonstrations that I think are really quite impressive. But this is only because we're not experts with upside down faces, only upright faces. But I asked Danny Kahneman about this idea of expertise and you may have heard the number 10,000 hours, so it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. So I asked him about this idea of expertise and how to turn novices into experts more quickly and here's what he had to say.


Thank you so much for coming today. My name is Talarie McCray and I am facilitating this session, which hopefully means I'm doing a lot of listening. I also wanted to let you know that we have HowlRound in the room for webcast capabilities. So I want to thank you in advance for your patience with all of the technological feats that we are attempting at the moment. That is going to be very important and also for access purposes. We're going to try to use the microphone as much as possible. So be patient with us as we pass it around. And if you, as we get to the section of our time together where we will have a chance to hear from you and hear any thoughts or questions you might have, be patient with us there too. We're going to try to make sure all of you have the mic. And again, it's for our friends that are joining us electronically and also just for access purposes so we all have the same volume. Let's go ahead and get started. I wanted to make sure that before we dive into content, we all have a sense of what we're doing here. So we'll start with some introductions. We'll let you know who we are. And we'll also let you know what we're hoping to accomplish in this session. And then before we dive in, we'll just very briefly talk about the language and words that we'll be using in this session. Because like we talked about yesterday at our opening and how we show up session, words are important. We don't ever want them to get in the way of the work, but I think in this case in particular, it'll be helpful for us to have a common vocabulary as we move forward in this session. So the panel's outside. Teamwork makes the dream work. We'll have an open door session. That sounds fitting. So who are we? I'm Taleri McCray. I am the facilitator of this session. I am an access inclusion and education consultant based in Louisville, Kentucky. I have the privilege of working with several theaters and different educational institutions. And one of my very favorite places to call home is the Actors Theatre of Louisville. So I'm very pleased to be working as part of their staff during their season. And like I said before, I'm hopefully here to do a lot of listening and maybe a little bit of tour guiding as well along the way. But I'll have Monique and Reagan also introduce themselves. Hi, my name is Monique. My name is Simon and I'm the Chief. It's Monique Holt. Why the M on the Chin? Because a lot of times people are looking for me and when they look down, they finally see me because I'm short. So it helps if I stand when I communicate. But basically I'm an actor, a director and also a director of artistic sign language for many different theaters. I contract. I'm a freelance contractor. I also work as a consultant with theaters regarding access and accommodation. And I'm happy to share with you later, but that's it for now. Hi, everybody. My name is Reagan Linton. I am an actor and currently... Oh, here we go with the door. I'm currently the Interim Artistic Director and Acting Executive Director at Family Theater Company in Denver, Colorado. For those of you who don't know what family is, the name initially stood for the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League. We have since done away with that acronym because many of those words we don't choose to use as we're talking about disability and ability. But we still are a theater company that serves actors with disabilities of all kinds, cognitive, intellectual, emotional and physical, doing plays and musicals. And I'm also currently a member of the Facilitation Team for the EBI Institute for TCG. And Monique is also, yes, we are both part of that Facilitation Team. Access. Okay. Also, because we wanted this session to be incredibly practical, one of the ideas that we had was to do a survey of other professional theater artists that identify as having a disability throughout the country. So I put a call out to actors, designers, producers, directors, theater artists in general, and we got several participants that shared with us their access needs. Again, there are nuts and bolts practical access needs when they're working on a theater project. So periodically throughout our conversation we'll refer to some of the other needs that we had. It just helped me broaden out in terms of who else was in the room. Do I have any participants of that survey that are with us in the room? Claudia is here. So that's fantastic. Thank you so much. Great. Okay. What are we going to do in this session? It's going to be really practical. You're going to leave with lots of ideas. We are going to be talking about best practices at the theater company where Reagan works. We're going to be talking to Monique about best practices in the theaters that she consults with. And also we're going to be checking in with them about the individual accommodations that they have negotiated as performers. And we're also, like I just said, going to check in with the other people that participated via the survey as well. And we'll have some time at the end for questions. How are we going to talk about access? And this is really important. When you're thinking about taking this back to your home theater, many, many, many theaters say we don't even know how to get the conversation started. So let me give you two words. The first word is accessible. If you are jumping into access for the first time, you can feel really empowered at your theater to talk about the environments that you support as being accessible. That's the physical environment, the communication environment, the information environment, and the social environment. For me, I love the word accessible because everyone can contribute to an accessible space. And because as a provider of an accessible environment, you don't have to know anything about an individual's impairment, diagnosis, personal history. You just have to ask them what they need. And when you ask them what they need to create an accessible environment, you're going to ask them about a reasonable accommodation. So the word accommodation is, again, a really big support there. We throw the word reasonable in front of it, or at least I do, because that is actually legal support for you. That helps you. If you let somebody know that you are providing a reasonable accommodation for an artist with a disability, there is some legal and structural support for you to do so, because it's part of your legal obligation and you're also navigating it creatively. But that legal support can be really helpful. And if you take nothing else away from this session, I want you to feel really confident about embracing that legal support and how it can help you in making your spaces more accessible. The last thing I want to say is that there's lots of different ways that you can talk about the disability community. You can talk about people of all abilities, you can talk about disabled individuals, you can talk about individuals with disabilities, whether or not you put the disability before the word or after the word, just say it, and that's just something we're going to embrace. And we're going to help support you in that. And if you need the support with that, if that's new for you, we're really here to help you do that and celebrate that and just get used to rolling those words around in your mouth. Panels, before we go on from language, is there anything else you want to add? It's really interesting for us as a deaf community. We don't use the word hearing impaired. Hearing impaired indicates that our ears are broken. They are looking in the first place. That's something to consider. We call ourselves Big D Deaf, Capital D Deaf, as a group. And then those that speak sign, they prefer to be called hard of hearing, which is fine. So I just want to let you know and share some vocabulary around that topic. Okay, great. As we're about to dive into some of the specifics, we thought there were a few things to keep in mind, a few trends that you might see. As we start to tell stories about theaters and people that have made accommodations, you might find that things are kind of falling into a couple categories. So I wanted to name that ahead of time so you can start doing that work and hopefully categorizing things for yourself. One of the themes that we find in best practices in inclusion and in access is that theaters are planning ahead. You have to kind of start that work early and often and keep those conversations going. It's really easy to make accommodations if you plan ahead. It's really hard if you're trying to do that and make a play at the same time. So we will talk about that. And always, always, always in having your conversation, make sure that you ask those questions to the individuals that you're working with. Rather than assuming what accommodations they might need, they're right there as your resources.  So that brings two people with great expertise in a really fun and exciting and creative space if you can think about it like that.  So plan ahead. Also communication, right? Always. Always and often. In planning the session, I thought it was so much fun to talk to Reagan. We're like, yeah, that didn't work, but we just kept talking about it. Yeah, that didn't work, but we tried something else. Oh, yeah, that didn't work, but we tried it again. And I know for those of us that work in accessibility, that's kind of what would come. Yeah, so keep communicating. Always. Also, this one, it's amazing how far this will go. Be really open and honest. Put on your best customer service basis in terms of being welcoming and then just be flexible with how it goes. If you've got a space that's not 100% ADA compliant, be super honest about that. If we all waited for our spaces to be perfect, nobody would do any of this. Which brings me to my last point, which I really like, which is aim for possible and not perfect. Right? You want to have the project happen. You want to get it started. If you wait for your building to be 100% accessible, which I get suspicious of, I don't think it exists. If you wait for your staff to feel 100% comfortable and well-trained, if you wait for all of those things to line up, the project isn't going to happen. The best stories of access I know are when people go, oh, oops, let's try again. Oops, let's try again. So that we're going to help each other in this space embrace the oops and talking about how to make things possible rather than perfect. Okay. Okay, so how do you find performers with disabilities? And I have this in a handout for you, but I wanted to organize it for you first because these three resources are the big ones, right? There's an online database with actors access, which at first glance tends to have a lot of West Coast gigs on there, but there's also resources in terms of looking for people in other geographic locations too. The Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts is based in New York City, so if you're looking for something that's more East Coast, they can help you there. And then the diversity department with SAC after is actually really great, and even if you're a theater and you're not working with SAC specifically, they can point you to other resources and help you know how to find the community that you're looking for. And again, I have this for you in a lovely handout. I also have for you in a handout a small handful of agencies and specific casting agents that represent performers with disabilities, so that's super helpful. I didn't put that on the slide just to save space, but we've got that for you in a handout. The other thing I think is really helpful to know is that there are groups that represent different groups within the disability community. So if you're doing a play where you're looking specifically for a performer with autism or an AVT or someone with Down syndrome, those kinds of things, those groups exist too, and you can reach out. Now, it's not always a one-step process. They might give you a couple of referrals to do it, but from the casting directors and directors that I've talked to, if you're persistent with it, certainly performers are out there. I also made sure that we've got Deaf West Theater and Family Theater on there, and I wanted, as we transitioned to hearing from Monique and Reagan about their experience, I wonder if they would talk just a little bit as performers about that process of even just hearing about auditions and what that's like, and then we can jump into the actual audition process. So, oh, sorry, hold on for that thought for one second.  How do you find the language to do it? So I pulled Family Theater's latest audition notice, and Family Theater, specifically, you need to have a disability to provide a family. So that was included. The word disability is all over their notice. But also the last line of this is important to me. Well, it's really all kind of cool, I think. Consideration, strong musical, vocal, and acting skills, including the ability to interpret music through a language like ASL. That's going to tell a performer a lot about what family is open to. And then also auditions are by appointment only and are reached by phone. Please specify any disability accommodations that you might need. I'm in the process of working with a couple different theaters on tweaking their audition language. So I have kind of an internal draft that I've done, right? So whatever theater encourages performers with disabilities to audition and will provide reasonable accommodations to individuals who request them in advance. And this is my personal preference. I think if you can say, in your audition notice, or list an example of the accommodations that you're willing to provide, that communicates a lot to the performers you're working with. They go, oh, they didn't just throw that on the end of their diversity statement. They thought about this, and they are ready to provide an accommodation if I ask for it. Which really helps a performer at ease. And I want Reagan and Moni to talk about this, because in the audition process we're already dealing with a power dynamic. And asking a performer to ask for something extra can sometimes be really tricky. So the more you can do as an organization to put them at ease that you've thought about in advance and who are welcoming to this idea, the better that audition is going to be. And at that I'm going to turn it over to Reagan and Moni to talk a little bit about what the audition process is like for them. Well, first I'd just like to jump back to the one slide that's about the resources and particularly about utilizing community groups, whether it be a theater company, or whether it's another organization that is disability specific. And it all wraps up in one, because while these are great resources, and just know there are also a lot more than we have listed up here, still just keep in mind that you don't want to put the onus on these groups to figure out your casting need for you. Now as artistic director of family, I often get calls to say, hey, we're looking for an actor who uses a wheelchair, and we need him in three weeks, and can you put the audition notice out for us to your community. And I'm happy to do that, but I think it also puts the burden of that work onto these groups to do your work for you. So just keep that in mind that you still want to connect to a multitude of groups and then you're the one who follows up on those recommendations rather than having an artistic director send the email themselves. So that's just one thing I wanted to mention. And then in terms of moving on to, well, did you have anything about resources, Monique? Yeah, and I'll just also say, you know, the landscape of disability theater in America is still very, the cohesiveness is still developing. There are multiple initiatives right now that are occurring in different cities. There are convenings of people who work in theater and disability that are trying to come together and trying to find a way to dialogue, trying to establish like a website that would have like all different disability theater resources in all different cities. So just know that is something that the community itself is really working towards, but you know, we're just, we're very scattered. So hopefully we'll have more resources for you guys in that regard coming up in the next couple of years. But yeah, in terms of audition notice language, I guess the biggest thing that I want to put out there is this idea of if you include it, kind of if you build it, they will come, mentality, or if you express it, they will feel more apt to come. You know, when I do not see anything, any sort of inclusion statement about disability, or if I see an inclusion statement that it doesn't include disability, that's often an experience that I've had as an artist, you know, talking about EDI, but then feeling like disability is the one thing that's left out because people think that disability means you actually can't do the job. So when I do see it expressed that disability is something, is a piece of diversity that a theater company is looking for, then I'm on top of it. And I will go back to that theater again and again, as opposed to if I never see it included in audition breakdowns, things like that. So that's just one thing that I want to re-emphasize. And then, Monique, do you want to say anything before we move on? If you have more, keep going, otherwise I'll say something. Well, I guess do you want us to move on to... Yeah. Okay. So in terms of how I find out about auditions, you know, now social media does play a huge role. There is a pipeline of artists with disabilities across the country, and often we are looking out for each other. And so, you know, I have friends in New York, including at Inclusion in the Arts, which is the organization that was mentioned, but also individual artists. So there's very much a, hey, you know this person who has an amputation, and hey, you know this person who uses a wheelchair. So that's often how things are communicated. I will mention one thing, though, recently, the most recent production of Blacks Menagerie that's on Broadway, they were very intentional about putting out a notice saying, hey, we're looking for a laurel that has some sort of disability. And they sent it everywhere. I'm sure many of you in this room probably got that audition notice. And I was really impressed at where I was getting it. I was getting it coming from Montana, I was getting it coming from Oregon, I was getting it coming from Colorado. So it was clear that they had done their work in terms of sending it out as far and wide as they possibly could to make sure that they were going to get as many options as possible. But in terms of other auditions, you know, I'm an equity actor, so I will often go to the actor's equity site. And again, that's where if I see something expressed in the breakdown that says this is an inclusive, or, you know, these auditions are looking for actors with disabilities, I will apply. If I don't see that, then it seems like that value is not expressed in that organization, and I often won't be likely to apply unless it's a project that I can kind of conceive of or a director or, you know, somebody that I know that's working on the project. So, I mean, I guess the main thing is we find auditions the same way everybody finds auditions. But we often won't feel encouraged to submit if there's not something explicit that relates to our disability identity. The thing about as an actor, often I'll look in the newspaper or articles or through word of mouth and they'll say, oh, they have a role for a deaf person. They're looking for this position to be filled. And they provide a sign language interpreter. Oftentimes they'll say that with SAG and equity. However, for actors on stage or for the deaf, they'll provide it. But again, don't assume. Sometimes I'll arrive and I'll be like, where's the interpreter? So, sometimes we have to be very direct and say, I need a sign language interpreter.  Yes, we want to have a deaf person, but how do I even get an interpreter? And so we've got everything backwards. It's like, okay, that's fine, no problem. And then I educate. I take the opportunity to educate. But after this second or third time, there's no excuse. So I'd like to make a suggestion about contacting sign language interpreters in your area. Contacting deaf clubs in your area. Deaf service organizations. These are all good resources that you can contact in your area. Just Google it. You'll find them. And they'll be able to provide you with good lists, good agency lists for providing interpreters. And you'll be able to use that to your benefit, to the benefit of your organization. Something else to think about, again, is you've got the network at your fingertips. Remember back then, what we did back then, we couldn't just type something in and get all the information we needed. And sometimes we, you know, it's through word of mouth. We network and we talk to each other. And the reason we do that is because we create cohesiveness work together. And we want deaf roles given to deaf actors. And that's why we support each other. But sometimes we think, oh, I'm the best deaf actor. And that can be another issue where we try to really hoard that position or an hoard that role. That can be a big issue. I don't know about a disability community, but it's an opportunity for us to become like, I need the work or I need that. And we become very hoarding about it. But we need to make those roles available and support each other to get those roles as well. And that's the attitude that we need to foster and then look at through different lenses so that we can really identify and recognize that problem within our community. And then from a casting perspective, it means that we have to be prepared. Like, how do we provide accessibility, access to accessibility, by including them in the first place before we begin to send out the audition? Maybe we contact a person who's in a wheelchair. Now, we're like, we know this person. Okay, let's reach out to them. Or we want to look for a person with a disability and have a conversation. So like, how do I start this process? Maybe we dialogue with the person that we know. We can start this conversation one-on-one. We can brainstorm together. We can talk about agencies and organizations that you can contact. And they might have a list of people within the deaf community or the disability community or organizations that you can contact. So you can get that information from during our homework. And now 50% of the work is done. And then you can go on and put out those casting notices and they can do the work. And I said, you've got a leg up, so use it. You know, word of mouth, use it. We've all got tongues, let's use them. Okay, so sometimes we really have to just go out to the community and say, I'm looking for this or I'm looking for that, please spread the word. And people can then perpetuate that on social media through Facebook and other forms of social media itself. Please share this and it will get the word out there. And then you'll have plenty of people in your pipeline that you can select. You'll have choice and not just say, oh, we got one person that came to our audition but they don't have any acting skill. What are we going to do? Who's fault is that? Ours. So that's from the audition. Peace of it. Thanks. I am going to be really aware that we've got neighbors in the next room over who've asked us to be a little careful with our volume. So I'm going to use soothing tones. Great, so we talked a little bit about auditions and I want to jump into the nuts and bolts specifically about auditions and callbacks. We're going to get to this in just a minute with some of the survey responses that we got but I want to give Reagan and Monique a chance to talk about the nuts and bolts of when you book an audition, what you need to make sure is in place. Monique talked a little bit about, oh, thanks for having a sign language interpreter. I hope they're going to be there. So we talk a little bit more about what's your routine to make sure that your audition is accessible and then we'll go on from there. Auditions are not done for deaf roles often. I see people willing to provide interpreters and I always ask that and they often go, oh, sure, I'm happy to have you come but we don't have that in our budget for an interpreter. So I show up or they have a monologue typed out for me and I know the play and I do it but often they might provide those organizations that are profit and not for profit and that makes a big difference. Money is often a factor. But again, people with disabilities always say, we always say thank you and we want to be an ally. We have to do our part as well to give and take between us and the organizations. Thanks for being equitable. We're entitled to that. We need to communicate our needs. They can't be our minds, the organization. We need to tell them what we need and sometimes we feel, oh, well, I'm not really deaf, I'm hard of hearing, I can speak for myself, but that causes a problem. Just tell them, I need an interpreter and when you get there, it will be nice to know that that's available and ready for you when you get there. It lessens the stress on both sides. Yeah, I think for me, one of the biggest things is flexibility in terms of the audition experience. Number one, timing. So when I roll into a room, often I feel like I'm not just trying to prove that I can do the roll, I'm trying to also prove that I deserve to live as a human being. And so that takes extra time and then in terms of just the logistics, if you have a three or four minute time slot for your audition and you want to do a good job on your monologue, but you also, you maybe need to communicate actively and offer up information about, for me specifically, can I get out of my wheelchair? Is that something that's available to me in a play? Number one, that's not something that you're technically allowed to ask as a director. So that's information that I have to be willing and ready to offer up and have that kind of packaged of like, well, how am I going to tell this director what I can do? But then I also have to build that into my audition time, which cuts back on the actual audition. So I think having a little bit more time to have those conversations with individuals as human beings and say, is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your performance style, about your body, about inviting that conversation to take place and then just realizing that that's a lot to be asking somebody where other actors get stymied and tripped up just by how they open the door and go into the room. Well, sometimes I've gone in and there are two steps up to the stage and so then I've got to ask the director to help bumping up to the stage. So there's just a lot of other stuff that's at play and so the more you can, you know, not only know your environment so that you know what to tell people, that's that social stories idea of being able to communicate, okay, well, here's what you're going to find when you get to the room and not just making the assumption that if you have two steps up to a stage that everybody's going to be able to do that. So those are, it's just the little details that complicate the audition experience and I think the more flexible and communicative you can be about that experience, the better. Anything different for callbacks than auditions? Yeah, I think the other thing, I'll speak to different disabilities also. One thing that I found a lot working at family is if you're dealing with somebody who has a visual impairment or somebody who has dyslexia or somebody, you know, the script experience can be so complicated for some people and you might have a great performer who once they've had time to prepare can blow your socks off but if you're putting them in a situation where you don't provide the script with enough time for preparation then you're not going to get the product that they can bring. So I think that's another really important thing to think about, just adding a few minutes on for their preparation and for cold readings or providing the script in advance so that they can prepare a little bit and making sure that people know that that's available because again, often there's this fear that if you make an accommodation that will cut you out of the opportunity to get the job. If you email the casting director and say, hey, can I get the script beforehand because I have dyslexia and I want to be able to look at it early that they'll say, no, you're asking for, you know, then we can't consider you. So making it obvious that those accommodations are available is really helpful and will allow people to ask and then to do their best work. So hold the mic, Reagan, because you did a great segue there into how family theater operates because the entire ensemble has different disabilities and different needs and we've got a handout for you about family theater's accommodations too. So we have all this in handout form. But just for time, I wanted to have Reagan talk about a couple of different accommodations for auditions and callbacks that you might not be familiar with. Monique talked about ASL interpreters, the idea of a social story walking someone through what their experience would be like. We do a lot for our audiences these days but you can also do that for your performers. But Reagan, can you talk a little bit more about the form completion and audition prep at Family? Yes, so form completion. So again, this is one of those details that for some people is very simple, for others not so much. So we have volunteers on hand who are just there to help somebody fill out their audition information form. Our form also includes more information about what kind of accommodations would you need during the rehearsal process. But we have people on hand who can help with that. We also can send the form ahead of time, electronically, and then be able to have them printed out and bring it. So again, thinking of those tiny little details that for many of the normative population don't stop them up, but when you're stressed out about the audition and then you have to think about filling out a form and you don't know how to read it, that can be a very stressful situation. And then in terms of audition prep and acoustic checking, it's again just the idea of knowing what the environment is that you're coming into. Particularly for a lot of performers with disabilities who haven't had professional experiences don't know what to expect in those situations. We try to do free audition workshops before our auditions because our auditions are open to the entire community anybody who has a disability. So we offer free audition workshops so that they can understand the experience of, okay, you're going to enter the room. You're going to, they're going to be people sitting behind a table looking at you. They're going to say, okay, go ahead, start. And knowing what you do when they say, okay, go ahead, start. Which again is a lot of 101 for those of us that have been in acting and then theater programs and things like that. But a lot of these individuals don't have that experience. And then being able to provide them with the information about the actual environment that they're going into is really, really helpful. And then you want me just to talk about readers really quick. So readers are another thing. This is another idea of what's possible and not perfect. We have visually impaired actors who, you know, because of the situation we may have to give them a cold reading on the day of that they're just not prepared to memorize, you know, in two or three minutes. We have volunteers, often fellow peer actors who will be there to go through the script with the cold reading and then can actually be in the room kind of whispering or queuing the lines into somebody's ear just, you know, very quietly as they're reading the scene so that they can, you know, participate but not have to memorize the scene. So, yeah, does that make sense how that goes? It's kind of like the, just like make it happen type of, you know, queuing of lines. So one of the things I love about family theater is that if you look at this list of accommodations, most of them don't cost any money. Most of them cost time and cost people but those can be rearranged. So that's really exciting to me. The last thing I want to leave you in terms of auditions and callbacks and I'll just go without doing the full question, I'll just say that choices are really important in accessibility. So giving an actor a choice between an in-person audition and a video audition is sometimes really huge and it'll depend on the individual and depend on the disability which format might be more comfortable for them. But again, if your goal is to see their best work give them the choice to feel the most comfortable, right? And these days with video auditions they're totally possible. So that's just another kind of big picture idea I want to put out there. If you give those performers a choice you're going to see their best work coming back. So before we jump on to rehearsals I just want to show you some of the accommodations that our survey results told us that they needed. Again, let me not raise your hand when you see one that costs money. These are really easy to do. I love that Megan Bailey says you know what, if I'm in a new space I just need a person there to help orient me and answer questions and if I get a little anxious help me know where something is so that I feel okay. And the great thing about Megan's survey was she said I don't need that all the time I just need that for the first day the first time. Also if you can let me know if there's any schedule changes as far as an advance ahead of time if you can give me directions both verbally and written which most stage managed teams are really awesome at that anyway and if I can just have a quiet space that's what I need. Brianka mentioned something at the very end with time priority she said that her disability is very much affected by times of day so she does her best work in the middle of the day and she also shared with me in the survey that that's not something she often asks for when she auditions and my question is let's give her the space where she feels comfortable to ask for that. That's not an unreasonable accommodation for her to say you know what for me to do my best work I'm gonna have to be not too early or not too late. So we can do that for her I think that's really exciting to think about. Okay. So now you cast an actor with a disability congratulations your process is gonna be so interesting and exciting and creative because you'll have all of that but it's gonna be great and it's a little exciting because you're kind of standing on the edge of a cliff and you're not sure what's gonna happen but we're all there to catch you you're gonna jump and fly it's gonna be great. So I had a conversation back in Louisville with our company manager who is amazing and the best at the business in terms of being a company manager and I said to her how do you plan for any accommodations that come through and she said to me you know what Talorie that's my job as the company manager it doesn't matter if I've got an individual that identifies as having a disability I spend my whole day making accommodations for performers that come through whether or not it's technically access or not she said some of the things that have really helped her is that she knew she'd been through staff training at actors theater so she knew how to start the conversation and she was really comfortable saying to those performers I really want to make sure you have an accessible living experience when you're here in Louisville are there any accommodations I can provide for you and she was comfortable with those words which is super important when you think about your staff so she said that was really great in terms of getting started she also said you know what I'm the expert on my space I am the expert on anything that happens at actors theater outside of the rehearsal room so I can ask specific follow up questions many performers she said are so thrilled to have gotten the gig that they're worried that if they ask for anything extra they're going to be chucked out the door so she said it's my job to make them feel comfortable I say hey I know that you're coming here and we need to make sure that your space is wheelchair accessible let me describe for you the entrance and exit to this apartment let me send you a couple digital pictures also can I tell you about how high the bed is off the ground can I talk to you through how the shower and the bathroom are laid out let's talk through what the kitchen looks like do you need anything specific there and she said once she gets those specifics going then the performers are like you know what I didn't think about it but I can't reach a freezer that's low down if you have a freezer that's side by side with the fridge that would be preferable to me and she gets a lot more information out of those performers when she sets the tone and when she lets people know that not only is she the expert on her space but that she's really willing and ready and created the time for herself to ask those questions and follow up in a really meaningful way that doesn't always mean that she can provide every single accommodation that people ask her for but they know she's on her team and they know she's going to try to figure it out in whatever way she can so I thought that was really helpful she also said I'm still learning and one of the things that really helped her in her work is that at Actors Theater of Blueville we have an ongoing relationship with the hotel down the street and they have they have guest rooms for us on a short-term basis and they also have guest rooms for us on a long-term basis and she said they have a really great access person and so when I'm trying to house a performer with a disability and I don't know what to do I call the hotel and we go oh you know what this person would actually do much better at the hotel than here because the hotel already has those accommodations in place or vice versa you know what the new apartments we have are actually going to be much better for this performer so we're going to put them there and put somebody else over at the hotel and that's just the conversation she has with the local resources that are there and I thought that was a great tip so that's done and she's cheering for you too she wants you to really knock this out of the apartment so that's in terms of bringing performers in from out of town I wanted to jump to back to family and think about the ways in which they provide specific accommodations and rehearsal and then we'll hear from Monique and Reagan too as performers and what they need but again I got this for you in a handout orientations and just orienting the space I'm going to have Reagan talk to us in a minute about what augmented scheduling means and a little bit about what in-room support means and then also Reagan if you could talk just a little bit about bad day support too and what that looks like at family if you're using your voice really quickly just one thought about the accommodations that we were talking about before you get a performer into your space I'm going to use OSF as an example when I spent my season at OSF they were so good about asking me all the questions up front that everything was set for me and the rest of the year I felt like I was their smallest worry I had nothing that I needed whereas a lot of other actors needed a lot throughout the year I actually felt like I made it to every reversal I made it to every performance I made it because we had had those conversations early and I felt very supported and set up the way I needed to be so just keep that in mind that I think sometimes it can feel more like more work on the front end but then that's going to set you up for success for the rest of the time period so in terms of these accommodations the couple of the teller asked me to talk about augmented scheduling time works differently if you have a disability of many kinds so we try to just set up a rehearsal schedule that is flexible and also basically makes space for well-being well-being and self-care what that means for us we're working with professional performers and amateur performers we have evening rehearsals four days a week for four weekdays and then one weekend so we have two days off for our rehearsal schedule on a regular basis and it also means planning a little bit ahead of time so we try to make rehearsal schedules that looked about essentially two weeks out so that people can make their arrangements for transportation for thinking about how it's going to work for them with their daily schedules some of us have to get up very early in the morning for attendants that are coming to help us with self-care so if we go until 11 o'clock or midnight we need to know that's going to be a really late night maybe I need to schedule my attendant a little bit later in the morning in-room support this just means in addition to stage management team sometimes we get additional volunteers who can just help right now we're doing Annie with family and we have 11 kids which is on top of all of our different disabilities having kids you know so it just means it's really nice to have somebody that can take a kid out of the room to go to the bathroom who might need additional help because they use a wheelchair and not take away from the stage management team so just having a little bit of additional in-room support and then finally bad day support again, disabilities can fluctuate a lot and so this is the thing that probably costs the least takes the least amount of resource all it is is being flexible and supportive and understanding that sometimes people are going to come in and have had a really shitty day and I'm talking also about social experiences we've had actors and family that literally have been assaulted just for being a person with a disability on the street an hour before they come to rehearsal so when they roll into the room to the rehearsal room and they've just been thrown out of their wheelchair and you know that's something you have to be ready to to work with and to give them some space and support and love so those are the types of things that we try to be ready and always coming back to that place of we're a community we're there to support each other as well as to do the artistic work I love the idea Reagan it's the idea of planning ahead again, having a plan B so that it's not a surprise it's not an if but it's a win and we're ready to go we just pull excuse the phrase we just pull the trigger on plan B and everyone knows what to do so that it's not in the moment we're trying to make this accommodation and make a play at the same time the accommodation piece is already there does that make sense? okay great we're gonna go ahead on to Monique to talk just a little bit about rehearsals tech rehearsals and performances I know those can be those can have some specific access needs so I just wanted you to talk from your experience as a performer or even as a director somebody smart in the room about what that looks like in your experience I have a few examples and I also want to go off-topic a little bit so remind me later I was hired by Milmore Cervatory Theater in 1991 and we have a community person Emily Webb and that was someone who was experienced working with deaf community national theater for deaf this was many many years ago I have a lot of experience and these folks at the time designed for themselves the cast was half hearing and half deaf with national theater the hearing cast members did not know sign language and the director was envisioning uh... Martha's Vineyard I always tell that Martha's Vineyard oh great, Martha Graham I always say Martha Graham Martha's Vineyard that's different, that's different so the story of Martha's Vineyard is about many deaf people who lived on that island at the time and all of the people hearing and deaf signed and so this was a concept that we were working with this production so we were doing the show Our Town so how are we going to do that and we really had to think through that really well how to do that the actors and the crew made agreements that we would give up one hour 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. for sign language learning and so we were all on the same equity time everyone was involved in that hour of learning and it was wonderful it was beautiful it was a great experience all the deaf actors were teaching the hearing actors basic sign language mother, father, family and so on we learned all of these we had a traverser as well the stage manager was involved the assistant manager everyone was involved and it was beautiful and by about a month in everyone was signing with each other we had less and less use of the interpreters but they were there we needed them sometimes some in-depth philosophical conversations we wanted the interpreters but my experience just impacted me so much it was really wonderful am I saw a track? okay for OSF I had a role of ASL translator meaning I was reading the Shakespeare rewriting it in a notation style for ASL we call it glossing GL, OSS but I was really working with the linguistic process thinking about what does this mean what does it draw the turn to history what does it mean how does it fit in sign language so that was a lot of work that was a huge job for me OSF their view they thought oh sure a person one deaf person they could do that one deaf actor no big deal common hearing folks you know actually you know that this was a doable job the deaf actor was hired at King Simboline so that's an important role and then hired me to be included with that and I begged I said please please please I need two weeks prior to the rehearsal I know their schedule and the director gave me one week so one week so he was he was stuck in jury duty poor guy so we had we lost a week at the time but I had a week to start working on it so thank you for that I had a week to prep I sat down with the director and the dramaturg myself the deaf actor and another actor who was acting as interpreter and all of us this whole group sat down we looked at the language we looked we talked about the meaning we talked about how should this be interpreted how should this be signed are there different ways to sign it hierarchy how are we going to sign that word hierarchy it's really to power when would we sign that when would it be spoken should soldiers sign on play he's the king and the soldiers would not sign right so I had a big job to figure out you know the role of each of the characters in the play as well not just doing the language so there was a lot of logistics and teaching the soldier to sign as well and then the person playing the queen the wife she never signed so that showed a different power in balance so that was really cool how are we going to show that and we really saw through that culturally and that was all this cultural information that I had to impart as well and then the director thought we want to use this part we want to show the power this way we want to be more vague on this part so we really brainstormed together and it was really nice and then the deaf actor was included in that as well with their opinions the two of us myself as a deaf person and the actor sometimes we disagreed but you know it's like all women are not going to have the same opinion all deaf people are not going to have the same opinion so you know we did come we agreed to disagree on some things but that really helped us as it done looking at you know what is rich and this look like is playing and I'm not saying it was perfect it's important that the director had a dialogue beforehand a conversation and then you know the future you know what kind different people in the future did not have that same experience at OSF other deaf actors are not having the same experience and that's frustrating to me sometimes the actors have no sign experience because then they're going to they have people coming in who are going to interpret for the deaf actors and I feel really bad if I do the reactions I'm like oh my god this language is different what do I do what do I do it's like settle down everyone you know sometimes we just don't have time we don't have luxury of time in that type of situation so I begged and I begged the directors please schedule an ASL meeting you know it's hard you know we're trying to do that at the same time with the understudy and so we had to think about timing how to reschedule we have to ask for extra time special time thirdly theater company and Berkshire theater company in Massachusetts we had our worst rehearsal our children have a lesser God they asked me to be the ASL director for the sign language let me back up sorry sorry sorry there's a sign coach different than artistic sign language director do you know what I'm talking about the difference let me explain when we have a sign coach we watch the person who is learning the sign language and we make sure that they're signing clearly that's it that's all we're doing the DASL director of the sign language for OSF I worked as a DASL and I worked with the dramaturge and worked with the deaf community worked with the translator we all worked together so that's a fair job so that's the D-1000 and when we're talking about do we want to do American sign language do we want to do sign detection English do we want to do pigeon sign language do we want to do regional international sign language French I know French I love it as well and now I'm learning Korean sign language and a few others but these are all things that are important to know what to do and what the role is if the Berkshire Company asked me to be their DASL and OSF asked me as well and so I asked them what do you need or they asked me what do I need and I said guidelines how do you work with the people how do you work with the actors I typed up a bunch of stuff for them I said oh I can tell you how to work with that I had four pages I sent that off four pages it wasn't done but I sent it but how do you work with these folks you know eye contact gesture hello get their attention you can't not look at the person you need to look at the person if the interpreter is voicing my hello they'll look at me you know oh yeah you know respond you know follow it's been different since notting their heads I know that they've seen me you know these are ways to work together how to set up the interpreters what's the actual logistic of the interpreters we have interpreters here in the front row we have interpreters standing up front you know these people can see me signing the other interpreters you know these are logistical things we have to and we also talk about rhythm like when people are reading like this that person can't do that we gotta look at the paper we gotta sign we gotta read it again and then we gotta sign people are like okay this is taking forever or maybe do something like this 100 signings you know give us a whole game give us some music dance something so these are things I try to encourage deaf actors to get off books sooner so they're not doing these kind of things so we talk about you know study your lines get off books as soon as possible you want your hands free so I've noticed in my experience hearing culture and deaf culture are different in deaf culture there's a lot of expansion and explaining storytelling of a situation this is how this is so in your mind you can get you know talk about the hierarchy of a family or political power who's above and below and how what are the relationships you know what's behind all of what's the trauma behind all these things so we have a lot of the storytelling about this inside language and so if that's not clear oh you're supposed to be my sister oh okay okay great my sister you know these kind of things are important to explain and again we don't have enough training enough trained deaf actors so we need to give a little more time to those deaf actors Reagan I'm going to pass it off to you to talk about rehearsals and tech and performances but before I do I wanted to check in with our survey and see what some other people in the country say that they need again stop me if this costs money um Mickey Rode needs an audio recording of the script or the first reading that helps him to learn his lines easy to do if you know in advance Anita Hollander needs cushions on hard chairs and access to an elevator again pretty easy to figure out if you're committed to having an accessible rehearsal space which doesn't have to be your regular rehearsal space if you're working with a performer with a disability that needs something that your building doesn't provide you can get creative about what building you're rehearsing in great again Megan Bailey says I need really clear instructions again all of these things are pretty easy to think about I really liked the idea of performers that say you know what if I have a recording either a video recording or an audio recording what happens then I can go home and do my own homework and I can do all of the same work that an actor without accommodation would do this is just an extra tool to help me do it so that's really helpful for me right I need housing on the ground floor I need an accommodation to get to rehearsal feels pretty easy to do Reagan I wanted you to talk a little bit about the accommodations that you need in rehearsal and then we'll jump over to family and see what additional accommodations they have for particularly tech and performances well personally when I've been in a rehearsal process or performance largely my biggest concern is bathroom time because if they call five minutes for a break and I have to go out of the you know into a hall and then take the elevator upstairs and then my bathroom process just takes a little bit longer and then you know like that is honestly my biggest concern in a rehearsal process and then of course you know just being able to navigate the space I do I have similar with my hands I'm often using my hands to move myself so I can't at the same time so those are things that I've developed my own strategies for how do I make sure that my script isn't constantly falling off my lap things like that but really you know there's not there's not a lot that personally I require for a rehearsal process and but yeah you can help those out there yeah technology and then we'll pass it off to Monique to talk a little bit about visual cues yes so accessible the ways in which technology can now be helpful in terms of access we do have actors in family who have traumatic brain injuries so when they're getting their notes from a director they need to record or they need to write those down immediately so while in family we have a no cell phones policy in the rehearsal room we do allow cell phones for technology purposes for access purposes for actors or product hearing actors is an earpiece that is essentially like a monitor an in-ear monitor that they can use during our musical performances so that they get they can they can hear the music because sometimes they can't hear it in the actual space with the acoustics about visual cues and how those work I think this is a really exciting opportunity to artistically to think about the vocabulary that you use when you're telling a story and when you're committed to those accommodations you actually have a new language at your disposal to use while you're telling that story so I just wanted to talk a little bit about visual cues certainly with Huntington Theater Company in Boston we did set up we decided how to use what we call the higher the stage manager slash facilitator any problems going on technically they would come up and sign and let us know what was happening which was very nice we also had light set up in the place so that we could see each other this is really cool so while on stage we had a glass booth set up the stage manager booth they had reflection so we could see the other actors on the other side of the stage through the reflection on the stage booth we could adjust our positioning accordingly and sometimes the monitors from music oftentimes will be monitors set up and we can see those so there was up high that I could see the monitor I'd have enough time to move and leave the stage and I know with a small budget theater group we used regular FaceTime we used FaceTime so we could have it set up on an iPad and we could look and then we could go to the stage and sometimes even just a flashlight flashing a light off stage we would use that as a way to queue and again you get creative you think out of the box and you've got the resources there that can help you accomplish these things so for tech and performances we had some designers from the disability community that said you know what I need an accessible tech table and I need stage walkers to do notes for me because it's helpful but that's usually easy to find I need to make sure that the dressing room is on stage level and that the backstage is clear of any debris and you know what I know that this is happening at actors theater and other theaters as well even if you don't have dressing rooms on stage level you can make a dressing room on stage level you want to communicate that in advance so the actor knows what they're rolling into but it's totally possible to make that happen just because it doesn't necessarily designated as a dressing room what else individual dressing space oh Regan will you tell your quick story about flow this is a really good one sure alright so this was something that came up at OSF so the dressing rooms are not on the same level as the stage in the Volmer at OSF and there's one elevator that's also a very slow elevator that goes from the dressing room level to the stage level and that elevator was often being used by the costume crew so it was just a matter of figuring out what our flow was going to be between me needing to use it and the costume the costumers needing to use it to transport costumes and you know after a couple performances we knew I knew exactly how much time I needed to plan to get up and get on stage as opposed to when they were going to be changing somebody in that elevator so just thinking about those little pieces of and then one time our flow was disrupted because the elevator it's all about flexibility I don't know about you but the awesome stage management teams that I've had the privilege to work with would love these challenges they'd be like bring it on we can make this happen right you get a good stage manager on it and you're good to go so again it's really fun when you say we're gonna do this we commit to it it's actually really fun to figure out okay so I asked our survey participants what they wanted people in this room to know casting directors and company managers directors producers to know about accessibility and here's what they said they said I love this listen and say thank you when you're being told about a reasonable accommodation and Mickey was like even if you don't know how to do it and you're kind of worried about it just say thanks and then you can go back with here's what I figured out here's what can work here's what can't rather than having that moment with them just be like thank you always good to know I like this one I like me questions right I'll ask for what I need but I don't know your space super well so that goes back to we are the experts on our own space and we're really good at being hosts and our guests will know what they need I like this one don't plan an accommodation for me without me that's it's just good customer service but I think it helps us from using our time wisely too I know I can get caught in that trap as a teacher and as an access provider I'm like I just need to ask great also this one communicate be welcoming and be open to change I know one of the things that Reagan and I talked about when we were planning for this session is if you're doing it right it's really messy and you're figuring it as you go and you can give a long list of things that didn't work before you get to what did but it's about kind of committing to that process oh I liked this one Brianka said accommodations ensure that performers do their best helps everybody when they're provided without a hassle right so if the goal is to make an accessible process where everyone feels comfortable doing their best work then finding a way to provide that accommodation is going to be a win-win and with that did Reagan or when he kept any other final thoughts to add before we ask for questions from the group okay great so we'll go ahead with questions I know that some of you might have some projects in mind or you might have some organizational specific questions about potential inaccessible moments or things that feel like they are potentially inaccessible and we have not just with a panel but also in the room some really smart creative people that might have an opportunity to do this I want us to end this session being really excited and empowered so we can kind of find that job I'm happy to have a question or anything we can help with oh yeah okay my name is Kitty and I am a disabled actor and I am able to pass as abled in most situations a lot of directors when I'm auditioning they can't tell and I'll bring it up in rehearsals and it's a problem because I'm not able to bring up my accommodations before the process even starts because I have been not cast in things because people didn't know what to do with me so I was wondering my question is what is your experience working with people who are disabled but otherwise invisible or after we having come out as disabled removing the invisibility and strategies I guess hoping strategies thank you so this is a really interesting question because you know like for me there I know I can't really pass however it does come up with for instance headshots and resumes and do I put that I'm a wheelchair user on my resume do I have my headshot just my head like everybody else does on my wheelchair so that you know so my my own opinion I think you do your best work when you're being your truest self and when you're not when you're not misrepresenting and there's no judgment that comes that misrepresentation because I understand why people do it because you want to get the job but I really believe that at least my experience has been the more you embody the truth of who you are the more people are actually going to be in that truth and in you as a performer so I think it plays out individually in you know I think especially in terms of the accommodations if there's something that you know you cannot go through the process without meaning I think it is best to talk about that up front as early as possible does that mean that somebody might you know it might cost you the job yes and that's a shitty situation as theaters become more inclusive but I think ultimately we don't start to make change if we're not letting theaters know that like this is a process that they should be engaging in and asking about those accommodations up front and so I think you're a change maker if you're able to do that yeah does that kind of help answer did I get it you're you have to remove the invisibility for either working with family theater how do you yes yes and I think with family it's interesting because we do have people with visible and invisible disabilities it's amazing I think the experience of working with family empowers a lot of people who may have an invisible disability to start actively you know communicating about their disability I think there's so much shame and so much marginalization that comes along with that and that's a whole other session I mean talking about like how we start to make disability interesting and sexy and attractive as opposed to something that people don't want to deal with and don't want to look at and don't want to pay attention to and that's what I think in terms of theory of disability we have so much untapped resource in disability in terms of how it plays out in theatrical spaces and stories but I think for the most part I think it's one thing I believe in is finding that community and being able to inhabit that identity whatever that looks like for you and I don't think that that's easy without support and I think that's one of the most amazing things about family is that the transformation that occurs for people that come to family not only theatrically and artistically but also just the human transformation of actually finally being able to identify as something when you've been told your entire life that is something you don't want to be part of and I had that experience that disability is after my injury I was like no I have a spinal cord injury I'm not part of the disabled community like I don't want to be you know that's something that's about congenital situations and you know and through working with this amazing group of people you realize oh we're just all on the same human spectrum some of us fake it a little better than others but like we're all fucked up so so you know ultimately that's my goal is to hopefully get to a point where you know in a weird way family wouldn't necessarily exist for the reasons that it was formed to exist because we it wouldn't be this binary of able and disabled it would just be we're all somewhere on that spectrum and all of our theatres are working to accommodate anybody at any point on that spectrum so if you want to come hang out with family too cause maybe that'll help so go here and then in the back so I was I noticed when you were listing resources that you listed SAG and after but equity wasn't what is this and I'm not you know whatever I'm just asking are you finding is there a movement amongst actors equity are there people that are speaking out and raising awareness and are you getting support from your union I guess that's my question yes equity has people with disabilities PWD it's under them can you discuss that yes they often will send out information and tips and auditions and all of that I guess there are others I will just say though it's a very slow difficult process with equity you know still there are many equity auditions where I go and they're not accessible and you know it's felt like a little bit of an evident flow for many many years and I think if you talk to actors they're like yeah there's this big push and they'll form IMPWD and then three years later it's like there's nothing happening with it so I'm interested in figuring out how we can create that longevity in terms of this interest and I think that actually starts more at an individual theater level in terms of the work that's being done is it okay if I speak to that yeah and then we'll go back just as a hearing theater producer I don't have a contract to misdance sorry I don't have anything I was appalled that for a deaf actor was appalled that equity sent me continually very strongly worded reminders that that actor was never supposed to start any work at all until that contact was signed but paid no mind at all nor did they care if I was providing her with ASL interpreters I wrote them a very strongly worded letter and heard nothing back so I find that to be like I find that to be a problem so there's something that we can be doing advocacy it's that it's insisting that equity take more care of their membership so I am Joe I have one more really quick interesting thing to mention so some of our actors are the assistants and we have one particular actor who was equity and ended up having to stop being equity because she couldn't pay her dues and her work with family there was somebody who had called her out and said oh she's working with family and said she's an equity actor she's not paying her dues and yet family to work with family and you know consider herself equity and not pay the dues as regularly as she would otherwise have been expected because it was a very you know it was it was there was no availability to her to make money she needed to pay her dues so that was an accommodation that equity didn't make so anyway we have a question we'll head to the back of the room but I just want to say what I'm hearing in this room as theater makers and as companies we can demand what we need and what we want to see on our stages and the more we learn about the accommodations that we need we can let equity know here's something you can help us out so that's something that we can do in terms of moving forward because we have a lot of resources in this room just with the people sitting here moving that way but I know we had a question towards the back hi I'm Brian Weaver Brian Weaver from Portland Playhouse I'm curious about when you've been cast in plays some of the creative solutions that you and directors have used when you are playing an actor maybe you're playing a hearing actor and are there interpreters on stage or have other do other hearing actors speak lines as you're signing them to or voiceovers or super titles or maybe all those things I'm just curious to hear some of the creative ways that you've been cast and yeah okay great great question that's a good question when I was cast for King Lear as Cordelia at the DC Shakespeare company I was the only person who signed and we had that conversation with the director the fool and I would be together we coordinated those roles and the background of the story is that he was the one who raised me because my the king was too busy to raise me so maybe the fool and I would create our own homemade sound which would make sense logically because there was already a formally structured sign language but it was just meaningless and a fool together and so the problem was the actor who played the fool wasn't comfortable not he's not a that person wasn't a physical physical theater actor more of a language actor which was fine so what happened is that that person would voice what I signed and that was a compromise that we came up with in the situation and then with other actors like Duke Burgundy and King of France they were flirting and Cortis wanted to marry that person and finally the King of France said okay I will marry them because the Duke doesn't want to and we discussed how to show that that person really cared for Cadillia during that courtship it wasn't fluent but willing that person was willing to learn learn Cadillia's language and the audience was like ah it's a love story and it was more impactful because of that and so we got creative and really tried to find ways to make that story more human and connecting and that's how we have that dialogue and collaboration we worked together to make that happen if there's a barrier we can finally learn it so a big part of this session has been more about nuts and bolts logistics and we haven't talked as much about the artistic incorporation of disability but there's just one thing that I do want to say because this came up yesterday in a diversity session or about EDI is this idea of like authorial intent and well if it wasn't intended to be a person who uses a wheelchair it wasn't intended to be a deaf person if that wasn't explicit then are we doing the service and I have to think of like well why do we consider a disability such an aberrant characteristic that stands out as opposed to somebody's hair color or somebody's body size like we're fine casting you know I don't know King Lear we're fine casting King Lear and not every King Lear looks the same ever but if all of a sudden we throw a wheelchair into a mix or a limb into a mix or you know why is that so much different why do we assume that that person is going to have a completely different life experience that doesn't connect to the experience of King Lear as opposed to just having less hair as King Lear you know so it's just something that I challenge people to think about because I often think that in casting you know it's like well if it doesn't call for a disability then how do we fit that in and it's like you know what people with disabilities are still just human beings you know they may mobilize a little bit differently but it's no different from any other human characteristic we're considering in casting so we're great so I have two perfect questions but I hope it's not too large and long one question is I haven't heard or at least I don't recall hearing in this conversation any discussion of Crip Face or Disability Drag or whatever language we like to use to talk about that practice but I did want to make sure we said that out loud in this room and request of my fellow theater makers don't do that and the second question is this so I wrote in a or I produced I created a collection of plays and one of the roles was identity specific and it said in the script this role must be cast by a person of color who was a physical disability we kept it vague we thought we were open enough and then my discovery was that particular play ended up not getting produced in a lot of communities so the disability story was not told but it was because the theater makers wanted to be they didn't want to do disability drag so I respected that and yet it was a gigantic loss and I discovered everybody calling me asking me where the black disabled physically disabled actors were and that was a deep frustration and I'm just wondering in those wonderful resources you shared our people of color involved in those resources if I just wanted to be involved in those resources if I reach out to there am I going to find the black actors yeah so first of all thank you for bringing up the concept of Crip Face just in case you guys are not aware what that is it's similar to black face, yellow face but it's cultural appropriation of disability culture and casting so again I think that goes more to the artistic theoretical stuff that we're not covering as much but thank you so much for bringing that up and I guess in terms of that so I think often when you're talking about disability actors with disabilities there are two different ways in which you're encountering it either you have something that is very specific there's somebody you know there's a role that is looking for somebody who uses a wheelchair or you're talking about this other spectrum of just humanity and you have a role that doesn't specify anything and thinking about casting a person with a disability in that role even though it's not specified it's very I think it's really complicated when it's very specific there was one example I know of recently where it was a person of color who uses a wheelchair and I heard this said that it felt like they were looking for a unicorn and I was like give me a break people like there are there are people with disabilities who are people of color as well like all over the place now I think what you may have to you know modify your thinking is again thinking about those colonial models and what are we looking for and we're looking for a certain kind of authenticity what are we looking for and we're looking for artistic quality yeah that may be something that you have to modify because you're looking you want to find this person with this particular identity so to your question you know I honestly I don't think we have actors with disabilities who are also actors of color I think we need to do a better job of training those individuals of identifying of bringing those people into the mix they do exist they exist in family they exist in other places but I think that is one area that when we're talking about disability it tends to be white centric in terms of those who are out there doing the work but it's not that's not a hundred percent so yeah I guess that's what I have to say so to wrap up I think this is a brilliant question to wrap up with because I think when you are planning ahead and when you make a commitment to produce a play that has a very specific need in that way that is currently in our social structure very specific I think you need to plan ahead for some resources and say I might not find this performer in my immediate local community but I have set aside resources to broaden my search I also think that we need to before we shut down and say we are not doing a play because we can't find X or Y we need to realize that the conversation is not yes or no there's a ton of gray area in between and if we are open and communicative to what's going on I know theater performers in the Washington D.C. area that say you know what I prefer that a certain role is played by a person with a disability but if a director calls me and says they're willing to swap it out and cast a performer with a disability in a non-disabled role then I'm willing to have that role that's written for a disability played by a non-disabled doctor because then the equity is still there you're still having the live disability experience in the room you're just playing a little bit more with how that's represented on stage so I don't want us to get too caught up in a binary of yes and no because access the fun part of access lives in all of that gray area so I think the biggest thing I want you to take away from this session is that it's possible to not look like you think it will on the offset and if it does I'm a little concerned but just go on but just say yes and go on that journey if that makes sense so I think that's where I want to leave us today thank you so much for coming thank you thank you thank you thank you for participating and here are some hand ups on your way out