Chrysler Hall in Norfolk to provide live captioning

NORFOLK

A small LED screen will make its debut at Chrysler Hall Saturday.

Starting with "Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles," Chrysler Hall will become the first venue in Hampton Roads to provide live captioning services on a regular basis for people with hearing loss, said Ma'rie Hodges, a spokeswoman for management/booking company Seven Venues.

The open-captioning equipment - an onstage LED screen with a caption operator on the floor - is being provided by Theatre Development Fund. It will sit on one side of the stage, making it easy for patrons to read captions and follow the actors at a glance.

Chrysler is one of 11 theaters the New York group is working with this year, said Lisa Carling, director of the fund's accessibility programs. Norfolk is also one of the smaller cities to team up with the group, which has worked with venues in Atlanta, Chicago and Portland, Ore.

Angela Hill, who is deaf, led the effort to bring open-captioning to Chrysler Hall. She and others worked to secure the one-year partnership.

Hill, of Norfolk, said captioned performances present an opportunity for people with hearing impairments to feel included in the arts.

Roughly 30,000 people in Hampton Roads have difficulty hearing, according to the 2010 census.

"The cost of deafness is isolation," said Don Doherty, president of the Hearing Loss Association of Virginia Beach.

People with hearing loss can't make spur-of-the-moment decisions to go to a movie or concert, said Brenda Estes, who works with the deaf and hard of hearing at the Endependence Center in Norfolk. Instead, they have to call ahead about their needs, she said.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires venues to provide effective communication such as captioning or a sign language interpreter for any performance at any venue. Staff at Willett Hall in Portsmouth, the Sandler Center in Virginia Beach and Chrysler Hall said their venues have provided individual captioning services on a case-by-case basis.

However, many don't want to admit they need help, Doherty said.

Open-captioning will be a helpful tool for many people with hearing loss, he said.

Assisted-listening devices, which allow patrons to control the volume of a performance, aren't always helpful for those with hearing loss, Estes said. For those who understand sign language, interpreters can be difficult to follow because they're usually offstage. The result, she said, is theater whiplash.

"Looking back and forth takes away from the fun," Estes said.

As part of the one-year agreement, Chrysler Hall will provide box office and staff services, marketing, and reasonably-priced seats for the hearing-impaired. The theater also will reserve seats at an easy reading distance from the stage.

It will offer open-captioning for seven Broadway shows.

Carling said her group could sponsor another year if all goes well. Ideally, she said, Chrysler would find a way to support captioning, which costs about $1,250 for the first run of a show.

The box office already has received calls about the captioned shows, Hodges said.

Hill said she's looking forward to not having to wait to understand a joke or ask a friend to explain what happened.

"Now I can laugh with them."

Sarah Hutchins, (757) 446-2326, sarah.hutchins@pilotonline.com