Friday, January 20, 2017

National Open Captioning Initiative



TDF offers a limited number of two-year partnerships with professional regional theatres to sponsor open captioned performances and increase attendance by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The sponsorship is intended as a service in and of itself for people who are hard of hearing or deaf rather than a supplemental service to be offered in tandem with regularly scheduled sign language interpreted performances.

Theatre Development Fund Provides:
COST OF SERVICE
Payment of expenses for contracting open captioning services through a professional theatre captioning company, which includes captioning fees as well as any travel expenses incurred by the caption operators during the preparation process and performance. Our service provider is c2, Caption Coalition Inc., for any OC sponsorship as we have a long-standing partnership with the company in modeling best practices on a national level. c2 is specific to TDF partnerships.

ASSISTANCE WITH PROMOTION
Listing of TDF sponsored open captioned performances at the partnering venue on TDF's website, with links for ticket purchasing; and publicizing these accessible performances through mail and email newsletters to TDF theatregoers with hearing loss.

EXPERTISE
Readiness to share experience on audience development, equipment options and funding; and to serve as a liaison, when needed, between producing entity and venue in regard to queries that may arise.

HOW TO APPLY:
Professional theatres interested in being considered for a partnership should send a letter of inquiry to tap@tdf.org by 6pm on April 21st, 2017 that briefly outlines the following:
*Commitment to providing better access for people with disabilities.*
*Indication of strong community support for open captioning; e.g., letter(s) from members of the community with hearing loss requesting open captioning and/or letter(s) from local HLAA chapter(s).*
*Proposed season schedule of open captioned performances with dates, times and productions listed, preferably in a series; e.g., one open captioned performance of each production in the Broadway series, offered on the first Saturday matinee of each show's run.*

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