Hearing Loss Law

Arizona Theaters Cry 'Uncle' -- But That May Not Be Good News

John Waldo — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:27:18 -0800

Lawyers for the Harkins movie theater chain, which took the position that they have no obligation to patrons with hearing loss other than to open the doors and let us in, are now waving the white flag of surrender. After getting lambasted by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal at oral argument, they filed a motion yesterday asking the appeals court to defer issuing a decision in the case while the parties try to reach a settlement.

While it's gratifying to see the opposition acknowledge that their clocks got cleaned by the appeals court, a settlement might not be very good news at all for folks outside of Arizona who want to see captioned movies. That's because if the parties to a lawsuit settle their case, the appeals court will not issue a decision. And without an appeals-court decision, the trial court's opinion remains "on the books" and can still be cited by theater chains other than Harkins who want to claim that they don't have any captioning obligations.

To briefly review, the Arizona Attorney General and the Arizona Center for Disability Law filed suit against the Harkins regional theater chain on behalf of both deaf and blind, claiming that both Arizona state law and the Americans with Disabilities Act required movie theaters to show captioned movies for folks with hearing loss, and audio-described movies for people with vision loss. The captions and descriptions are furnished without charge by the studios -- the theaters must simply install and deploy equipment needed to display those auxiliary aids.

The theaters argued that they have no obligation to do either of those things. They said that all ADA requires is that they treat everyone equally. Captioned movies, they claimed, are a different product than non-captioned movies, and ADA permits them to sell whatever product they choose -- and they don't choose to show captioned movies. The federal district court bought that argument, and issue a truly regrettable decision.

The case then went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument last month. The judges essentially ridiculed the theater's argument, telling the theater attorneys at one point that "you will lose on this issue ... maybe not this case, but on this issue," and urged the parties to work out an agreement.

The Harkins attorneys are now asking for the opportunity to do just that. While the judges indicated strongly that they won't accept the theaters' argument, they didn't actually issue a ruling. And the Harkins attorneys are now asking the judges to put their ruling on ice while the parties mediate and try to resolve the case.

While it's always nice to make peace and put an end to litigation, there's a danger involved. Any settlement would just bind the Harkins theaters in Arizona -- not any other theaters in any other states. The bad decision from the trial court, though, would remain on the books to jump up and haunt us at some future time even if the appeals court issues an order saying that the decision is "vacated."

What the appellate court wanted the parties to work out, we think, were the details -- how many screens would be equipped to show captioned films, how often would they be shown, etc. We completely agree that discussion ought to take place, but we think it should take place after the appeals court issues an opinion striking down the trial court's opinion.

We've made our views known to the folks in Arizona. It's their call, of course. But they have done such a great job getting what will be a landmark case this far, we hope they decide to let it play out.

Captioned Internet Videos -- An Emerging Issue and Initial Success

John Waldo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:51:30 -0800

Internet videos are becoming a more important source of information, supplementing and sometimes completely replacing written communication. But too often, the makers of those videos forget about those of us who "hear" with our eyes as well as our ears. Especially with the fairly low-fi computer sound systems, non-captioned videos are often inaccessible to us.

Thanks to the persistence of one of our Wash-CAP members, the Spokane Regional Health District has now captioned all of its informational videos. When you go to the District's web-site, you can choose between the regular menu of videos or the "closed-captioned" menu -- click on the latter, and the videos appear with a "captions" icon that you can turn on or off.

The District originally took the position that written transcripts available upon request would be sufficient. We disagreed. In correspondence with the District, through its Spokane attorneys, we pointed out that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public agencies to make all of their programs and services accessible to people with hearing loss, and the law further requires them to give primary consideration to the method of accessibility being requested. We also pointed out that the time and expense required to furnish a written transcript would be essentially the same as the time and expense required to prepare captions, so there was little money to be saved by their proposed alternative, and much to be gained in terms of more widespread and timely access by our proposed method.

After considering the alternatives, perhaps including our observation that it would cost them a great deal less to caption the videos than to debate the issue in court, the district complied, and now makes its on-line health advisories accessible to everyone.

The whole business of internet accessibility is an increasing concern. A bill introduced in the House of Representatives, H.R. 3101, would address the problem on a federal level. (Read about H.R. 3101 at the website of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, or COAT). Since government agencies have to make all of their "programs and services" accessible, government-provided videos pretty clearly must be captioned.

The great gap at the moment deals with on-line videos created by private businesses, who are not required to make their programs and services accessible, but only their places of business. Courts are divided on whether a website where goods are sold can be classified as a place of business for purposes of disability laws. The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has said that places of business are brick-and-mortar places only.

However, a federal district court in California has qualified the Ninth Circuit's rule somewhat by saying that if the inaccessibility of the website actually hinders one's ability to shop at the brick-and-mortar store, that may be a violation of federal disability law. We believe that logic should apply, at the very least, to on-line instructional videos for products sold at the brick-and-mortar store

Upcoming Captioned Performances at Paramount Theatre

John Waldo — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:20:48 -0800

Seattle's Paramount Theatre, which pioneered open-captioned performances in the Northwest, will offer three captioned productions in the next six weeks.

This Sunday, Jan. 24, at 6:30 p.m., the captioned production will be Xanadu, a roller-skating pop-rock confection best known as a 1980s movie starring Olivia Newton-John. The music comes from Jeff Lynne, the under-appreciated leader of the Electric Light Orchestra. (You'll recognize the tunes even if you don't recognize the name). Tickets are available on-line at a special price of $38.50.

On Valentine's Day, Sunday Feb. 14, again at 6:30 p.m., the captioned production will be Annie, the musical re-creation of the long-running comic strip about a red-headed moppet and her dog Sandy. It was the longest-running comic strip ever, and one of the longer-running shows on Broadway, logging well over 2,000 performances. Again, tickets are available on-line for $38.50.

Then on Sunday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m., Paramount will do a captioned version of Chicago, a musical originally choreographed by Bob Fosse which was made into an Academy Award-winning movie and which is now back on stage. Here's a link to on-line ticket-purchasing, and the price again is $38.50.

Paramount is offering two other Broadway musicals in the Spring -- Dreamgirls in April and Fiddler on the Roof in May. Dreamgirls, based essentially on the rise to fame of The Supremes, became a critically acclaimed movie starring Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson, while Fiddler is the much-beloved recreation of life in a Jewish shtetl in the last century. No word yet on whether those productions will have a captioned performance, but assuming Paramount adheres to the pattern of captioning the last Sunday evening performance, the dates would be April 11 for Dreamgirls and May 30 for Fiddler.

For the open-captioned performances, the captions are prepared in advance, and are displayed on a small reader-board placed in front of the stage on the right edge. Tickets purchased through the open-caption links will be in an area where both the captions and the on-stage action can be seen with minimal head-turning. Paramount began offering one captioned performance of each of its Broadway offerings in August of 2008 at the request of the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP). Since then, Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre have also begun offering captioned performances.

Banner Day in Court for People with Hearing Loss

John Waldo — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:28:43 -0800

A federal appeals court in San Francisco heard oral arguments on Jan. 13 about whether movie theaters must offer services like captioning or audio descriptions so that those of us with sensory losses can enjoy the movies. And the arguments of one theater chain that all it needs to do is open the doors and let us in was, to put it mildly, poorly received.

Those of us who have spent a lot of time in appellate courts are usually pretty cautious about trying to predict a case's outcome based on the questions the judges ask. But there are sometimes a few clues, or "tells" that can indicate that, just maybe, things aren't going your way.

1) When the judges start making the other side's argument for them, that's a pretty good "tell."

2) When the judges say your clients are "being jerks," that's a pretty good "tell."

3) When the judges suggest that "someday," people will be laughing at your argument, then when you don't back off, proceed to do so, that's a pretty good "tell."

Well, I'm pleased to report that all of those things happened to the attorneys for the Harkins theater chain when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments about whether the Americans with Disabilities Act requires movie theaters to show captioned (and audio-described) movies.

As you may know, the Arizona Attorney General's Office sued the Harkins theater chain, claiming that the business violated both ADA and Arizona state law by failing to show captioned and described movies. The AG was not suggesting that the theaters themselves had to provide the captions or descriptions, but only that they need to install the equipment necessary to show the captions and descriptions provided by the studios.

The theaters took the position that ADA does not regulate the contents of their products or services, and that they offer non-captioned movies. "We have the right to choose what services we provide, and that is our choice," said the attorney for the theaters. "We let everyone come into our theaters and see our (non-captioned) movies, and that is what ADA requires us to do."

The AG's office, on the other hand, said that captions are the kind of "auxiliary aid and service" that the ADA requires to enable people with hearing and vision losses to gain the "full enjoyment" of the businesses' offerings.

The judges basically said flat-out that they thought the theater argument is preposterous. Alex Kozinski, the chief judge, said, "What if we took the position that this building is a building with steps, and if someone in a wheelchair wants to come in, they can find somebody to carry them?"

Kozinksi went on, "Actually, that case happened, and some lawyer argued that being able to crawl up the steps was good enough. Today, people are laughing at that argument, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, people are laughing at your argument."

The attorney didn't back down. And the judges started laughing.

"Captions just let them enjoy the same movie that everybody else sees," Kozinski said. "I don't know why you don't want to do this."

Kozinski went on to say that at best, it's only a matter of time before movie theaters have to comply. "You are going to lose," he said. "You might not even lose this case, but you will lose someday. Why don't you get out ahead and do the right thing instead of being jerks?"

Nor were the judges impressed with any argument about cost. I asked for CART for the hearing, which was provided. "That wasn't in our budget," Kozinski said, "but we pulled it together in a day. With what theaters are doing with 3D, the cost of this (providing equipment to show captions) is just a drop in the bucket."

Now I don't want to suggest that we're going to see every movie captioned at any time in the future. The judges seemed pretty clear in their view that open-captioning can change the moviegoing experience for hearing patrons, and that the interests of those patrons must be balanced against the benefit to those of us who need captions. I think it's quite clear that those theaters that offer open captions, visible to everyone in the audience, would not be required to caption every movie.

The judges also recognized that the pending change-over to digital display may mean that some things that can't be done now can be done in the future, and that today's captioning equipment may become obsolete. But the judges said issues of that nature should be worked out by the parties themselves.

In fact, that's just what the judges suggested. "You've got your general counsel here," Kozinski told the Harkins attorney, "and the AG's office is here. Why don't you just go down to the cafeteria and work out a schedule today?"

I would anticipate a "quick" decision from the court, but "quick" from an appellate court probably still means four to six months.

Meanwhile, the attorneys representing the movie theaters in our Washington case were in the audience. They asked me afterwards whether we could just put our case on ice for awhile, until the court rules on Harkins. They noted that we're "going to spend a lot of money" making motions in our case.

I said I wasn't interested in a stay. What I suggested instead is that they basically just throw in the towel on any argument that they don't have to do anything, and sit down and negotiate what and when they have to do things. Their response: "we'll report to our clients about what happened today, and get back to you."

The bottom line -- circle today's date on your calendar. This was the day that the movie theaters' arguments that "we don't have to do anything" crumbled.

Showdowns Scheduled in Movie Captioning Cases

John Waldo — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:03:33 -0800

Next week in San Francisco, on Jan. 13, a federal appeals court will hear oral arguments in a case out of Arizona that may determine once and for all whether movie theaters may be required to show captioned movies to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Then two months later, on March 12, a superior court judge in Seattle will hear arguments over whether movie captioning may be required by the Washington state Law against Discrimination.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office brought an action against that state's Harkins theater chain contending that under ADA, theaters must show movies that are captioned for people with hearing loss, and that contain audio descriptions for people with vision loss. The AG's office didn't say that the theaters had to create the captions or descriptions -- those are contained on a computer disc that comes with many, although not all, first-run movies. The AG's office was simply stating that Harkins must equip at least some of its theaters to actually display those captions and provide the audio descriptions.

Harkins argued that it had no such obligation. It said that ADA does not regulate the content of goods sold or services offered, and argued that the "goods" or "services" it offers are non-captioned movies. The federal judge in Arizona agreed, and the case is now on appeal.

A number of other lawsuits have been filed requesting movie captioning, with mixed results. But the Harkins case is the watershed event for a couple of reasons.

First, the federal courts of appeal are the second-highest courts in the land, right below the U.S. Supreme Court. This will be the first movie-captioning case to reach the appeals-court level. The decision will be legally binding only in the Ninth Circuit states of Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii and Alaska. But as a practical matter, most federal courts will generally follow the first appellate-court decision to address a particular issue. So the case could essentially establish a national rule.

Second, if the decision is upheld, we can anticipate all sorts of other businesses arguing that by the same logic, they should not have to provide captions. If a movie theater's "product" is non-captioned movies, then surely, live theaters can argue that their "product" is non-captioned drama, and universities can argue that their "product" is non-captioned lectures.

Needless to say, we think the trial-court decision is profoundly wrong. Wash-CAP filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Arizona case, and we've been in contact with the Arizona attorneys about the oral arguments. I'll be in San Francisco Wednesday listening to the arguments, and will file a blog entry about them. It generally takes an appellate court from six months to two years or more to announce a decision after oral argument, but sometimes -- not always, but sometimes -- the questions the judges ask at oral argument can give one an idea of what they are thinking.

The arguments will begin at about 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Browning Courthouse, 95 7th Street in San Francisco. We've worked with the court to have the proceedings captioned, and would encourage anyone in the area who is interested to attend.

While the Arizona case will likely establish what ADA requires, it won't directly impact the case Wash-CAP filed in King County Superior Court under our state law, which in many ways is far superior to the ADA, particularly for people with hearing loss. Our complaint claims that under state law, theaters must take those steps "reasonably possible in the circumstances" to make their movie soundtracks understandable. As with the Arizona case, the theaters deny having any such obligation.

We've worked cooperatively with the attorneys for the King County movie theaters to develop a set of stipulated facts. They will then file a motion claiming that they have no obligation, and we will file a cross-motion claiming that they do. Our case is scheduled for oral argument before Judge Regina Cahan in the King County main courthouse, 516 3d Avenue, at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 12.

New date for Paramount Christmas performance

John Waldo — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:45:07 -0800

Seattle's Paramount Theatre has changed the date for presenting the captioned versions of its Christmas show, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring New York's famous Radio City Rockettes.

The captioned performance will be Wednesday, Dec. 30, at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are available at a special price of $38.50. Here is a link for ordering the tickets on line. https://www.stgpresents.org/oc/radiocity.asp

For those of you who haven't yet attended a captioned theater performance, the dialogue and song lyrics are displayed on a portable reader-board placed in front of the stage. A block of seats is made available in an area of the theater that enables patrons to see both the on-stage action and the captions with minimal need to move our heads and eyes. The captions are prepared in advance, so they are error-free.

Wash-CAP Is Getting a Southern Companion

John Waldo — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:50:11 -0800

Word had spread about the successes we've enjoyed in Washington through the Washington State Communication Access Project, (Wash-CAP), our organized group advocacy on behalf of people with hearing loss. Last weekend, I met with a group of folks in Oregon who are interested in forming a similar organization, tentatively called the Oregon Communication Access Project.

The meeting was organized by Clark Anderson, a retired hospital administrator from the Eugene area. Clark brought together a number of Oregonians who have been actively working on behalf of people with hearing loss. Their general consensus -- it makes sense to work as a group.

The overall objective in Oregon, as in Washington, will be to actually implement the provisions of federal disability laws that guarantee access to public places to people with hearing loss. The legal landscape in Oregon isn't quite as favorable -- while the federal Americans with Disabilities Act applies, Oregon does not have a state law like Washington's that goes beyond ADA's requirements.

We talked about the need for strategic planning and a systematic approach to implementing those plans. We talked about how our initial efforts to make live theater accessible in the Seattle area led us to learn about available technologies and providers, so that we could be resource people for businesses that want to reach out to people with hearing loss but aren't sure how to do it.

As was the case in Washington, the feeling in Oregon was that it is important to begin dealing with situations where the business's obligations are pretty clear-cut, and the advocacy efforts are therefore likely to succeed. In that light, efforts to make live theater dialogue and announcements at sports facilities understandable seemed particularly promising. Because of that, the early focus is likely to be on improving access at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Portland Center for the Performing Arts Broadway series and other major live theaters in Portland, the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, and professional and college sports venues in Portland, Eugene and Corvallis.

This is great news for both Oregon and Washington. Working in two continiguous states will help generate awareness of the needs of the hearing-loss population and how those needs can be accommodated. Many people in both states cross the Columbia regularly to patronize attractions in the neighboring state.

I'll continue to advise OR-CAP on some of the technical details of getting started -- things like the mechanics of incorporation, the necessary corporate documents and the public outreach effort that is required. We hope they may benefit by what has worked well for us in Washington, and perhaps benefit just as much from things that we might have done a bit differently. We anticipate that by mid-January, the Oregon organization will be up and running, and opening doors there for those of us with hearing loss.

Accessible holidays at Seattle theaters

John Waldo — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:42:14 -0800

Thanks to the good efforts of a number of Seattle's live theaters, those of us with hearing loss won't need to have a holiday season full of nothing but silent nights, as we'll have a menu of captioned performances available to us.

Tomorrow, Dec. 4, Seattle Repertory Theatre is offering a captioned performance of "Equivocation," a play in which Shakespeare is the principal character, not the author. King James has commissioned Shakespeare to write a play about a plot to assissinate the king, but when Shakespeare finds out that the "official" version of events isn't accurate, he has to choose between his artistic integrity or possibly his head. To ensure seats from where the captions will be visible, email the box office, boxoffice@seattlerep.org.

On Sunday, December 27, Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre will present a captioned performance of the holiday standby White Christmas, the Irving Berlin favorite. Fifth Avenue is offering tickets to the captioned performances for the special price of $37.50. Again, the best way to ensure that you'll be seated in the right spot is to email the Fifth Avenue box office, ticketing@5thavenue.org.

Finally, the New Year really will get kicked off on Jan. 3, 2010, when Seattle's Paramount Theatre presents the Rockettes and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at 5 p.m. It appears that Paramount has changed its website design, and in the process, we've lost the on-line order button for captioned performances. For now, other than calling or visiting the box office, the best bet for those of us who don't use telephones easily might simply be to contact Mason Sherry, the theater manager directly by email, masons@stgpresents.org. Mason has been a terrific supporter of Paramount's captioning efforts, and he will find a way to let us order online tickets.

The captioning at all three theaters is being done by c2net from Boston, which converts the script into text form in advance, then displays the captions on a portable reader board visible from a bloc of seats set aside for those who request them. The captioning effort has been partially funded by the Theatre Development Fund from New York City.

The captioning efforts were undertaken after requests from the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership corporation whose purpose is to improve access to Washington's public places for people with hearing loss.

Ferries seek bids on captioning system

John Waldo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:12:05 -0800

The Washington State Ferries have issued a request for proposals for a visual paging system that will display in captioned form the announcements made on board WSF's vessels and at its terminals.

The request -- a legally required step for a state agency to make a significant purchase -- asks potential vendors to give specifications and quote prices for what it calls a "voice-to-text visual paging system modeled after the visual paging system at San Francisco International Airport."

Deadline for vendor responses is January 7 of 2010, and WSF expects to award a contract on February 1. (Read the full document here).

Numerous announcements are currently made by public-address systems on all of WSF's vessels and at its terminals, but those announcements are difficult for hard-of-hearing people to understand, and are totally inaccessible to deaf passengers. Both state and federal law require government entities such as the state ferry system to make communications effective to people with hearing loss.

According to the bid documents, the system "must be capable of converting regular voice messages from a variety of assigned vessel crew and terminal personnel." Both routine and specialized announcements (such a information about cars with lights left on) will be displayed in text form on television-type monitors or on reader-board devices.

The purchased system will be installed first for a six-month trial run on the two large boats that service the Seattle-Bainbridge Island route, and at the Seattle and Bainbridge Island terminals. If the system proves reliable, it will then be expanded throughout the WSF system.

WSF's actions are being taken to resolve a lawsuit filed against it by the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a Washington non-profit membership corporation which has the objective of making Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss.

WSF operates one of the world's largest ferry systems, serving more than 23 million passengers annually. With studies indicating that almost 8 percent of the adult population have a hearing loss serious enough to interfere with their ability to understand speech, this system should benefit almost two million riders a year.

Ferry system unveils captioning plans

John Waldo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:53:46 -0800

At a recent Seattle meeting of interested organizations, Washington State Ferries explained how it intends to convert its public-address announcements made on its vessels and at its terminals into text form, then to display those announcements to make them accessible to patrons with hearing loss.

The basic system will be modeled after the system used at San Francisco Airport, where all gate information and passenger pages are displayed in text on some 80 screens visible throughout the airport. Here are the notes from that meeting, as compiled by WSF.

The San Francisco Airport has a central communications center, where all messages originate. That allows the messages to be dictated by a very few speakers, which enables the information to be transcribed into text using a software program, without any additional human input. Because the WSF messages will originate on the individual vessels, a centralized system may not work in this application. WSF is therefore thinking about how to standardize the messages in such a way that vessel crews only have to type in the specifics, like the license number of a car or the name of a person.

The feedback from representatives of organizations that serve people with hearing loss was overall quite favorable, although people with both hearing and vision impairments noted that the proposed system could still leave some access gaps.

After evaluating feeback from the user groups, WSF will formulate a Request For Proposals, and follow state purchasing requirements to obtain and install a captioning system on the Bainbridge vessels and at the Seattle and Bainbridge terminals for a six-month trial. If the system performs satisfactorily, it will then be installed system-wide.

There are too many unknowns to predict with any certainty when the systems will be installed. The target to install the test system is the latter half of 2010.

WSF is undertaking this effort to resolve a lawsuit brought against it by the Washington State Communication Access Project, which alleged that WSF was violating the Washington State Law Against Discrimination by failing to communicate effectively with hearing-impaired patrons. After the suit was filed, the Attorney General's office worked smoothly with Wash-CAP to come to an agreed order implementing the communications improvements.

Washington State Ferries is the nation's largest ferry system, carrying some 26 million passengers annually. Assuming the prevalence of hearing loss among WSF passengers is similar to that in the nation as a whole, as many as 4 million passengers will benefit from a system-wide implementation of the agreement.

Author series adds captions ... and raises question

John Waldo — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:11:14 -0800

After a year of correspondence with Wash-CAP, Seattle Arts and Lectures is making its popular Benaroya Hall presentations by prominent authors significantly accessible to patrons with hearing loss by captioning five of its 2009-10 events.

Captioned presentations include two Pulitzer Prize winners, an award-winning screenwriter, two food-and-travel authors, and a medical journalist whose work is profoundly influencing the national debate about health-care reform.

The captioned schedule is as follows:

Oct. 7, 2009 -- Annie Proulx, Pulitzer-Prize winner for The Shipping News and author of Brokeback Mountain, a short story that became a much-praised and controversial movie.

Dec. 1, 2009 -- Richard Price, author of the novel Clockers, which bears a strong thematic resemblance to the award-winning HBO television series The Wire, to which Price contributed, and screenwriter for many other movies.

Jan. 12, 2010 -- Jane and Michael Stern, food and travel writers devoted to America's back roads and to the unique and surprisingly excellent food one can find there.

March 9, 2010 -- Michael Chabon, Pulitzer-Prize winner for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and author of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, whose work consistently draws rave critical reviews.

May 3, 2010 -- Dr. Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon and journalist, whose writing on health-care costs and quality have gained wide influence inside the Obama Administration.

All lectures are at 7:30 p.m. at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle. Because the captions will be visible from throughout the auditorium, patrons who want to see the captions will have the same array of ticket prices and options as all other patrons.

Single-event tickets go on sale Aug. 24. We have asked SAL to consider offering a season subscription to all of the captioned events.

SAL's decision to make the captions visible to all raises an interesting question. On the one hand, we appreciate being able to sit wherever we choose. On the other hand, because of the equipment required, universally visible captioning is considerably more expensive than captioning visible from only a portion of the auditorium, meaning that fewer events can be captioned. So the question is, which is better? We hope to get some feedback on that question as we work with SAL to plan future seasons.

By adding captions to its array of accommodations, SAL joins Seattle's Paramount, 5th Avenue and Seattle Repertory Theatres, as well as the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks, in making its offerings available to those of us who have a significant hearing loss but who communicate orally rather than through sign language. Those captioning efforts have been instigated at the request of and in cooperation with the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) in furtherance of Wash-CAP's objective of making Washington State a national model of accessibility for people with hearing loss.

A Third Theater Offers Captioned Performances

John Waldo — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:34:28 -0800

Seattle Repertory Theatre will make much of its 2009-10 season accessible to people with hearing loss by offering captioned performances of its four at the Bagley Wright Theatre, Rep's main stage.

The productions and caption dates are:

39 Steps -- Thursday, Oct. 1

Equivocation -- Thursday, Dec. 3

Glengrarry Glen Ross -- Thursday, Feb. 11

Fences -- Thursday, April 1

Tickets will go on sale Aug. 21. Seattle Rep marketing director Katie Jackman plans to send us an email link that we can post on this website to enable them to keep track of how many ticket purchases come from our readers and members.

The caption-area tickets will cost $35 each, significantly less than Rep's normal pricing of $41 to $48 for seats in that area.

Seattle Rep joins Seattle's Paramount and 5th Avenue theaters in offering one captioned performance of each of its dramatic productions. The captions, prepared in advance, are displayed in synch with the performance on a portable reader board. All three theaters have engaged c2net out of Boston to do that captioning.

Rep's initiation of captioning comes in response to requests from the Washington State Communication Access Project, and is one more small step towards our objective of making Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss. Wash-CAP was also responsible for instigating the captioned performances at Paramount and 5th Avenue.

Seattle Rep's captioning program is being funded in part by a grant from the Theatre Development Fund from New York City, which has also provided start-up funding for Paramount and 5th Avenue. Three of TDF's eight access grants this year have gone to Seattle theaters, a focus that TDF Accessibility Programs Director Lisa Carling says is the result of Wash-CAP's advocacy within the Puget Sound theater community.

5th Avenue Theatre releases captioning schedule

John Waldo — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:57:36 -0800

Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre this week released its schedule of captioned performances for the 2009-10 season.

The first captioned performance will be "Catch Me If You Can," a new musical version of the Leonardo di Caprio movie based on the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction biography of Frank Abegnale, an imposter-embezzler who used his gift of gab to pose as a professional in a number of fields, and made off with millions in the process. The captioned performance will be Wednesday, August 12, at 7:30 p.m.

The rest of the schedule is:

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," Friday, Oct. 23, 8 p.m.

"White Christmas," Sunday, Dec. 27, 1:30 p.m.

"South Pacific," (the revival by Intiman Theatre's Bartlett Sher that won seven Tony Awards), Saturday, Feb. 20, 2 p.m.

"Legally Blonde," another movie-turned-musical, Friday, March 5, 8 p.m.

"On the Town," Friday, April 23, 8 p.m.

"Candide," Wednesday, June 2, 7:30 p.m.

Fifth Avenue is undertaking captioned performances at the request of the Washinton State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership corporation whose goal is to make Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss. The captioning arrangement will be very similar to Seattle's Paramount Theatre -- a portable reader-board will be placed to one side of the stage, and the captions will be scrolled in synch with the performance.

Fifth Avenue will sell two tickets to the captioned section at a discounted price of $37. Buyers of those discounted tickets can buy two additional tickets at the regular price.

Season subscriptions to the captioned performances are available. You can get the details on the "Accessibility" page of Fifth Avenue's website, http://www.5thavenue.org/accessibility/.

For those who can't attend the special captioned performances, Fifth Avenue will offer scripts in illuminated binders at all performances.

Fifth Avenue joins Seattle's Paramount Theatre in becoming accessible to people with significant hearing losses by offering one captioned performance of each of its Broadway-type productions. Paramount's schedule for the remainder of 2009 is available on a prior post.

Mariners score big with ballgame captioning

John Waldo — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:08:54 -0800

One of our more recent entries announced that the Seattle Mariners would try to accommodate fans with hearing loss by making available portable video-game terminals that would display captions. A Wash-CAP board member tested the system last week, and said it is terrific.

"The device is very good," reports board member Dean Olson. "I was able to read it and then look up at the game. It's useful information -- like when the stories come up to read about the players."

What is being captioned is the Mariners' radio broadcast, which is also fed into the stadium. When the public-address announcer chimes in, that announcement overrides the broadcast, and when that happens, the captions are of the PA announcer. So the captions convey the same information that is being piped into the stadium for the hearing fans.

The devices may be checked out at the Nintendo kiosk behind home plate. Dean reports that they took a credit card and charged $300 as collateral, but when he turned the device in after the game, they gave him the slip to tear up.

The Washington hearing-loss community will have a chance to check out those devices en masse on July 10. The Puget Sound Chapter of the Association of Late Deafened Adults (ALDA) and the Seattle Hearing, Speech and Deafness Center (HSDC) are promoting a night at the ballpark. There will be a section cordoned off for us, so we can sit together, say hi to our friends, and enjoy a summer night at the ball game. (The opponent will be the Texas Rangers).

The Mariners will set up a special button on the "special group" area of the team website for us to order tickets, and the tickets won't be limited to hearing-loss folks -- we can all bring our friends and families. Let's have a big turnout to support the Mariners and their efforts to support us.

Seattle theaters becoming more accessible

John Waldo — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:25:38 -0800

Seattle's vibrant drama scene continues to become more accessible to people with hearing loss, as both the Intiman Theatre and the Seattle Repertory Theatre take concrete steps towards offering captioned performances and Paramount Theatre releases its full schedule of captioned shows in 2009.

Following our written requests for captioned performances, I had a very productive meeting earlier this week with Intiman's incoming and outgoing Board presidents and two of its key staff members. Intiman is receptive to the idea of captioning one performance of each of its annual productions, and is currently seeking financial support from the Theatre Development Fund of New York to make that possible. (One of TDF's missions is to enhance accessibility of live theater).

Seattle Repertory Theatre is in the same situation. It plans to start offering captioned performances beginning this fall, and it is looking for funding as well, also from TDF.

I suggested to the Intiman managers that rather than everyone making separate applications for a finite pot of money, the theaters apply jointly for a grant that would support captioning for both. I also suggested they consider forming a consortium to buy the equipment and recruit and train a captioner -- an approach that theaters in England have used to make theater captioning far more common there than here. (We had also raised this possibility with TDF itself, and the feedback we got was that Seattle might be an attractive place to try out this joint approach).

In the interim, Intiman is going to reserve scripts and penlights that will be available on request beginning this Friday, April 24.

Meanwhile, Seattle's largest theater, the Paramount, has released its schedule of captioned performances for 2009. "Frost/Nixon" will be captioned on May 10, "Rent" on June 21, "Wicked" on September 27, "August: Osage County" on November 1 and "Fiddler on the Roof" on November 29. Tickets for the captioned performances will be available on line.

The Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership corporation dedicted to making Washington's public places accessible to people with hearing loss, began working with (or on, depending on your point of view), Seattle's live theaters a year ago to make their offerings available to us through captioning. At Wash-CAP's behest, the Paramount began captioning last August, and has now offered captioned performances of six Broadway musicals. Seattle's other large theater, Fifth Avenue, will begin presenting captioned performances in the fall of 2009, and we are working now to expand the use of captioning into some of our smaller venues.

Mariners, Nintendo bring us into the game

John Waldo — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:50:10 -0800

The Seattle Mariners and Nintendo, the Mariners' principal owner, are teaming up to make this season's games more accessible to fans with hearing loss. Their method -- a video gaming device.

Nintendo and the Mariners have been working for a couple of years on the Nintendo Fan Network, which allows someone to bring a portable Nintendo gaming console to the game, then use it during the game to access a number of interactive features. To promote use of the network and the purchase of the gaming devices, the Mariners are going to be loaning 150 of the devices to fans on a first-come, first-served basis, according to a story in this morning's Seattle Times.

After the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) approached the Mariners about captioning the public-address announcements at Safeco Field, the Mariners and Nintendo evidently figured out how to add captioning to its menu of features accessible via the DSi gaming device. So we can set the device to display captions of those announcements as well as ordering food, checking scores, and all the other things that can be done.

Importantly, the Mariners will reserve some units specifically for the hard of hearing, and those won't be subject to the first-come, first-served rule.

According to the Seattle Times story, the devices will be available from a kiosk on the main concourse near Section 142.

I get the feeling this is a work in progress, and the story suggests that this is something of an experiment in how best to make in-stadium communication accessible to those with hearing loss. Let's give it a try, thank the Mariners and Nintendo for trying to respond to our needs, and give them the feedback necessary to make the system really work.

We're helping folks with hearing loss

John Waldo — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:39:24 -0800

Most of our blog posts have been about the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), and what we are doing to make Washington's public places more accessible to people with hearing loss.

While those efforts are the ones that show up in the news, we are also working to vindicate the legal rights of private individuals related to their hearing losses. Here is a sample of that work:

-- A union electrician needed sign-language interpreters to attend classes required for his continued certification, but the school -- a joint enterprise of contractors and the union -- took the position that the electrician needed to pay for the interpreters himself. We believe that under both Washington state law and federal law, that position is dead wrong, and after the school failed to respond to our letters, we filed suit. The result was an admission of error, an apology, and an amicable resolution of the matter for the future.

-- A woman's Cochlear Implant was failing, her doctor recommended implanting the other ear, but questions remain about whether Medicare will pay for a second implant. We helped find a medical facility that navigated through that maze, and performed the implant.

-- A social worker employed by the state was having difficulty keeping up with her workload, because the ambient noise in her office meant she had to look directly at her clients in order to speech read, and she couldn't do the computer entries at the same time. With our participation in the state's Reasonable Accommodation process, the worker now has a private and quiet office.

-- A health-care worker was forbidden to apply for a job she wanted because management believed her hearing loss would make it impossible for her to do the job. We filed suit on her behalf, and will argue that this kind of paternalism, however innocently intended, is wholly impermissible because if people are not given the chance to fail, they won't have the chance to succeed to their full potential.

-- A client in Texas lost her job as a financial controller when her company down-sized, and has been unable to find replacement work. She had a disability-insurance policy that would pay benefits if she had a disability, was unable to earn her pre-disability income and there was a substantial connection between the disability and the inability to earn. We worked with her on filing a claim for benefits. While we realize that this is a difficult economy, we think the extra handicap imposed by her hearing loss is the sort of connection that warrants an award of insurance benefits. We are cautiously optimistic as we await the decision.

If you have a question about your rights or the rights of a spouse or child with a hearing loss, please get in touch with us for a no-risk, no-obligation evaluation of your situation.

Box offices booming -- time to make movies accessible

John Waldo — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:20:21 -0800

Everywhere we turn these days, we see signs that times are getting tough. Jobs and homes are being lost, businesses are failing.

You'd think that would be driving people to drink, but alcohol sales are way down too.

So what are people doing to try to keep their spirits up? Well, according to an article in today's New York Times, they are going to the movies in record numbers.

Not only is total revenue up -- partly a function of higher box-office prices -- but total attendance has taken a sharp jump. If the current trend holds, this year will see the biggest attendance spike in over 20 years.

What accounts for that? According to one academic whose specialty is the entertainment industry, "It's not rocket science. People want to forget their troubles, and they want to be with other people."

This trend could well prove to be an enormous blessing for those of us with hearing loss who have been advocating for greater access through captioning and better sound systems. The exhibitors have been arguing for years that accommodating our needs imposes an "undue" economic burden on them. But with labor and construction costs down, and movie-exhibitor profits up, this looks to be the perfect time for them to act.

We should find out soon whether the exhibitors' resistance to captioning has softened. The Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP) filed suit earlier this month against the multi-plex theater owners in King County (greater Seattle), asking for meaningful increases in the number and variety of captioned movies.

The defendant exhibitors are trying to arrange a meeting with us in early April to see if we can reach an early resolution. The robust box-office returns should give us another means for arguing that there is not time like the present for them to act.

Seattle pro football hears us loud and clear

John Waldo — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:21:45 -0800

In response to an inquiry and request from the Washington State Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), the audio portion of professional football in Seattle is going to become accessible to fans with hearing losses.

The plan is to provide requesting fans with a hand-held unit that will display in captioned form the announcements from the referees, the public-address announcements, and the audio portion of the in-stadium entertainment, including song lyrics. Because the devices will be portable, we'll be able to use them from any seat, and take them with us to the concourses or the rest rooms. And because they are individual, folks that hear won't have their experience altered by captions on a Jumbotron or reader-board, (and we won't hear the flak from people saying we're ruining their fun).

The captions will be done in real time by qualified captioners, possibly remote but more likely on site. The specific system they have in mind at Qwest Field in Seattle is used at National Football League stadiums in Denver, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, so it has a proven track record.

The only real problem I see in this approach is that a good football game can be a "full-body" experience, in which you need both hands for shucking peanuts, holding onto both beer and hot dog, and high-fiving your neighbors when something good happens. I could see potential for the devices getting dropped and broken, lost, and so forth. (Toting them into the rest rooms creates some yuck factors as well). My suggestion was that they find a way to put the devices into a carrying case of some sort, then put straps or bands on the devices so that we can wear them like wristwatches on a forearm, keeping the hands free.

As I said, this is for both of Seattle's professional "football" teams -- the Seahawks, who play American football, and the Sounders, who play what we call soccer and everyone else calls football. (I'm not sure what Europeans call American football, but someone from abroad once observed that it is a game that combines the two worst features of American life -- violence and committee meetings).

Officials anticipate that this system will be up and running by mid-Spring, perhaps in time for the Sounders opener on March 19, and certainly in time for the Seahawks season.

The gentlemen I met with today were Lance Lopes, the General Counsel, and David Young, an assistant general manager. If anyone wants to say "thanks" to these guys, Lopes' address is 12 Seahawks Way, Renton, WA 98056, email LanceL@seahawkssoundersfc.com, and Young's is 800 Occidental Ave. S, Suite 100, Seattle, WA 98134, email davidyo@seahawkssoundersfc.com.

Wash-CAP is dedicated to enriching the lives of people with hearing loss by making communications in Washington's public places understandable. We begin by contacting the facilities, explaining the problem, and asking for their help. Sometimes, that is all it takes, and today was one of those days.

Wash-CAP making waves and headlines

John Waldo — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:45:19 -0800

Some Hollywood type once opined that "there is no such thing as bad publicity." If that's the case, this has been a banner week for Wash-CAP, the Washington State Communication Access Project.

On Tuesday Feb. 17, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran what I thought was a very nice story about our movie-captioning lawsuit. The P-I does give readers the opportunity to comment, and boy, did they -- mostly hostile, of course, from people who think lawyers are crooks and laws don't really apply.

A couple of days later, the North Seattle Herald sort of piled on with an editorial opining that our lawsuit wasn't necessary. The editorial was obviously based only on the P-I story -- I doubt the editor had read our complaint, and certainly didn't talk to me or anyone on the Wash-CAP board. I fired off a response -- we'll see if that ever appears in print.

Some really good ink on Saturday, though, from the Kitsap Sun, our county-wide daily newspaper, reporting on our agreement with Washington State Ferries. The really surprising thing was the prominence they gave the story -- the top of Page One! And we even had a rare non-snarky response from somebody who said that captioning announcements on the boats could really help.

We've also been on the radio recently. I did an interview Wednesday on the movie case with Dori Monson of KIRO Radio in Seattle, our local Rush Limbaugh right-wing wannabee, who basically did a lot of hufing and puffing that amounted, in the end, to saying we just should stay home and rent the DVDs, and not appear in public. He was upset, apparently, at the thought that private businesses have to spend money to accommodate folks who, in his view, won't help themselves. I'd like him to spend a few days with any of us to learn how much work we all have to do to stay involved in the world.

I didn't hear it, (radio not being exactly user-friendly to the hard of hearing), but I was told by some friends who did that we got some nice mentions this morning on KOMO Radio, the other Seattle news station, about the WSF lawsuit and its resolution.

It's disheartening sometimes that the initial reaction from many folks is that we should simply go away. Change isn't easy, and unfortunately, too many people think that if we (or any other group) gets something, it must mean that they will get less.

I take some comfort, though, in the realization that acceptance of "the other" has been going on almost since time began. It's interesting, sometimes, to read the ancient laws laid down in Leviticus, for example. In some respects, the laws of 1,200 B.C. aren't that much different than modern law. The difference comes from who the law benefits -- 3,000 years ago, the law benefitted free male adults, while slaves, women and children were treated essentially like cattle. Progress does come ... not as fast as we'd like, but it does happen.