Thank you so much @marcus_bernard for this lovely shoutout. I'm not an access expert, but I thought it might be useful to explain why many shows do not integrate access in a way that was key for Midnight Movie and for @rachel_bagshaw, Sarah Readman, and @joshuapharo's practice. https://twitter.com/marcus_bernard/status/1281560774666866689

I LOVE integrated captions. They add so much to the storytelling of the show, they can be wonderful opportunities for enhanced humour and theatricality. The small text variations that are part of the game make the liveness of the whole event more visible.

They also need to be timed immaculately. To do that, the designers become part of the rehearsal process. This of course has knock-on effects for the budget. @CEPadgham was our SM, and she had over 9000 (yes) caption cues for a 65 minute show. She is a ninja and a genius.

But the alternative - just throwing up captions with no regard to timing or staging - is really disrespectful to Deaf audiences imo. Watching theatre should not be like watching ping pong. People shouldn't have to choose between watching the actors and understanding the words.

But getting the timings right has a knock-on effect on tech. We tried to squeeze it all into a standard tech and had to cancel a preview. Integrating the timings of audio description, captioning, and video just takes more time than a normal tech. And that affects budgeting too.

BUT - and this is very important - it needs to happen. It's cheaper to just exclude people, but it's also cheaper to just not pay people. We accept that not paying fair wages is a way of structuring brilliant artists out of theatre -

- and we need to accept that access is a non-negotiable expense. It's only ableism that's kept the industry from building that recognition into project budgets and tech times. Only ableism. That's it.