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By
Patty Mathieu
In January, Seattle Center received a gracious letter from a patron who
is severely hard of hearing (SHOH), requesting accommodation for his
disability at future events at various Seattle Center facilities,
including Key Arena, McCaw Hall, and the professional theatres located
on the campus.
The patron, John Waldo, is familiar with opera supratitle projections,
such as the system used at McCaw Hall, with the supratitle projections
and seatback title screens provided by Figaro. He suggested that similar
technology could be used to provide him the text of song lyrics and
spoken dialogue during performances.
In its vision to be the Nation’s Best Gathering Place, Seattle Center
strives to welcome the widest diversity possible to our 76-acre campus.
Our events and programming appeal to people of all races, genders and
cultural communities, and also embrace diversity in those who are
differently-abled and may have barriers to being able to enjoy our
events. We strive to remove those barriers whenever possible. Mr.
Waldo’s letter received a great deal of thoughtful attention at all
levels of Seattle Center’s management.
The Challenge
Mr. Waldo provided us with an introduction to a form of disability we
had not addressed before. SHOH people “are people who may have been born
with adequate hearing, and were deafened later in life, or who always
had a hearing deficit but learned to speak and speech-read. Our common
and defining characteristic is that we have always been part of the
hearing world and wish to remain so.”
They do not use sign language, and their hearing loss is so significant
that Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are not fully effective. In
addition to requesting accommodation at all performing arts events at
Seattle Center, he specifically challenged us to accommodate his needs
for the upcoming Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert at Key
Arena. Setting aside whether we are legally required to accommodate this
disability, we looked at what it would take to make this possible. We
would need the system for managing and delivering the lyrics to the
patron’s seating location. And we would need the content – lyrics and
live dialogue – entered into the system.
The System
Because of our success with the Figaro system at McCaw Hall, we looked
first to how it might be replicated. Seattle Opera staff enters the
lyrics into the Figaro computer system, broken into segments that fit on
the seatback screens and on the surtitle screen over the stage, as well
as suiting the phrasing and pauses in the music. The title projection is
rehearsed with the Opera rehearsals for several days before opening,
creating a smooth, seamless enhancement of the production for all
patrons.
The Figaro computer system for storing and advancing the lyrics made
sense, but the McCaw Hall system is hardwired to each seatback (not
practical for this one-night test) and projected lyrics would be
cumbersome and distracting to other patrons. Bryan Hollar from Figaro
offered to put together a demo of a wireless handheld screen for the
patron that receives text from his computer via Wi-Fi.
He also offered a second input to the system from a normal Qwerty
keyboard or a stenographer system if we could provide a typist to
transcribe banter between songs. He would need a control location in view
of the stage with room for a computer, two monitors and two keyboards,
one 20A circuit, and a place to put the WiFi emitter. Edie Burke,
manager of Key Arena, lined up a suite behind the stage, gave Bryan full
access to the building to set up and test the day before the show, and
set out to find a stenographer or typist to transcribe. She also secured
funding to cover Bryan’s travel expenses and labor, while Figaro loaned
the equipment at no charge.
The Content
Bruce Springsteen’s Web site lists all of his song lyrics, and posts the
set lists for each show on his tour, making the creation of a database
of potential song lyrics “doable.” It was not feasible to input the
entire Springsteen catalog into the system, so songs were chosen based
on their appearance in previous shows on the tour, plus some of the hits
that could pop up in an encore.
He makes the set list at the last minute (about 20 minutes before the
show starts), and as we learned during the event, he does not stick to
the list! With about 60 songs loaded in, a Springsteen-savvy volunteer,
Kurt Walls, lined up to run the title system, and Key Arena’s Office
Manager Caroline Smith to type as Bruce talked, we were set.
The Concert
The system set up and tested quickly. The band rehearsed three songs,
none of which were in our system. A quick trip to an internet connection
and Bryan had two of the three loaded in before show time. Mr. Waldo
arrived; he and his friend were given hand-held Figaro screens. One of
the songs from sound check opened the show, and the demo was up and
running.
About three songs in, Springsteen played two songs that were not on the
set list, and we had our own, “Name That Tune” moment trying to identify
the song and get the lyrics up as quickly as possible. He digressed from
the list again mid- show and in the encore, but the patron received
lyrics for all but two songs.
The Review
From the patron, Mr. Waldo, “The captioning devices added immeasurably
to the experience. When we know what words are being spoken or sung, we
have the sensation of hearing. When the captions were functioning, the
sensation I had was that Bruce was articulating his words with clarity
sufficient for me to understand him. When the captions weren’t working,
I couldn’t understand a word he said or sung. The ultimate objective of
creating faux ‘hearing’ was served perfectly.”
The transcribing proved less than ideal. A court stenographer system
would have been more effective. It would be interesting to try a voice
recognition system for closed captioning to cover this need.
The amount of labor it took to enter the lyrics, even with a performer
who makes them easily available, and the challenge of keeping up with an
ever- changing live performance make this approach only partially
useful. A feed from the performer’s teleprompter could work, but getting
access to that from a touring rock show is nearly impossible. With
Springsteen, we sent messages to the tour for two weeks, and on the day
of show, and then they offered a teleprompter feed about one hour before
show time. We declined due to no time to test it.
In closing, this technology is better suited to repeat performances
where rehearsal time is available. The experiment taught us a great deal
about potential future methods of ADA accommodation, and opened a
dialogue with the local SHOH community. As Seattle
Center continues to improve the range of services we can provide, we
will keep in mind Mr. Waldo’s words, “with the mix of large and small
venues, Seattle Center has an almost unique opportunity to work with
those of us in the SHOH community towards removing communications
barriers at performance venues.
“My hope is that over time, removing those barriers (which I think the
Figaro system is capable of doing) will enlarge your potential audiences
to the point that the cost-benefit equation becomes positive (or at
least sustainable).
“That will require both figuring out how best to go about providing the
appropriate aids and services and — perhaps most important — letting the
world know that you are doing it.”
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Patty Mathieu is production manager of McCaw Hall at Seattle Center.
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