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Dunedin actor Anna Henare and her trust, Experience Access, have teamed up with Fortune Theatre to present the first of six audio-described performances in 2012, starting with The Motor Camp at 4pm on Sunday 4 March.

Dunedin actor Anna Henare and her trust, Experience Access, have teamed up with Fortune Theatre to present the first of six audio-described performances in 2012, starting with The Motor Camp at 4pm on Sunday 4 March.

“This is an opportunity for Fortune to connect with a new audience,” Anna says. “But it’s also a chance for blind and vision impaired people to experience theatre in a much more profound way – to ‘see’ the set, the props, the costumes, and the characters’ movements and gestures.”

Audio description is a commentary for blind and vision-impaired people about what’s happening on stage in between the dialogue. An audio describer talks into a microphone, and this is transmitted via wireless receivers and headsets worn by the blind and vision-impaired audience members.

Preparing for the performance

As the describer, Anna prepares for the performance by watching a video of the play and then writing a script that describes the unspoken aspects of the performance. In the actual performance, she sits in the technician’s box and provides the commentary.

As part of the project, Experience Access is collaborating with the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand to provide training to Fortune Theatre’s staff and volunteers, thus ensuring the patrons’ safety and comfort. 

Before the performance, there is also a touch tour of the set.

The six audio-described performances of plays in Fortune Theatre’s 2012 season have been supported by a one-off $3000 grant from Creative New Zealand and an additional $1500 financial support from Fortune Theatre.

All of the audio-described matinee performances are open to the general public and Anna says the audio description will not have any impact on the rest of the audience.

A part of the general audience

“It’s imperative that people with impairments can come along and be a part of the general audience without any great hoopla. And it’s easily achieved. The description itself can only be heard via a small ear piece worn by that particular audience member.”

Audio-described performances are well-established in Britain and the United States, says Anna, who completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theatre in Seattle, the Unites States, before returning to New Zealand and her home town of Dunedin.

“There seems to be a terrific energy within the arts community in New Zealand to become more accessible, which I find both exciting and heartening,” she says. 

“We have a phenomenal partner in the Fortune Theatre, which grasped this idea with both hands and ran with it. Staff, volunteers and vision-impaired groups and individuals are pooling their resources to make this project happen.

“It’s incredible that we can offer audio-description for six professional productions this year, thanks in part to the Creative New Zealand grant. It’s brilliant. ”

“I felt like an equal member of the audience”

In December last year, Experience Access presented its first audio description for Fortune Theatre of a Roger Hall comedy, called A Shortcut to Happiness.

After the performance, one of the audience members said: “I felt like an equal member of the audience. I was able to laugh along with the others at the same time because the description meant that I was kept current with what was happening on stage. It was nice to be able to go along to a production and not have to rely on the friends I was with to provide descriptions of the performance. I will definitely be keen to go along to more audio-described performances next year. “

Another audience member said: “Anna Henare did a great job organising the touch tour and providing a voice for the description. The touch tour was important because it allowed us to have a sense of the performers’ movements ahead of time … The description allowed us an independent way of being more certain than we usually are of exactly what was happening. This allowed a rare chance for me to laugh with knowledge of what I was laughing about rather than trying to guess, which requires considerably more energy and reduces the enjoyment.”

Audio-described performance dates

All six audio-described performances will be held during the 4pm Sunday matinees at Fortune Theatre. The dates are: “Red”, 29 April; “Two Fish and a Scoop”, 3 June; “In The Next Room (or the vibrator play)”, 15 July; “Heroes”, 9 September; and “Calendar Girls”, 2 December.