Anita Walker: Good morning and welcome to part four of the UP Awards, a celebration of Universal participation and a way to acknowledge organizations in Massachusetts that are doing an exemplary job of including everybody. Charles Baldwin, you are here again. We are here again. And you know what? Y'all who are joining us, don't see is a lot of the conversations before we get started. And I'm now led to believe that we are pushing the envelope just a tiche more in terms of finding new ways to be inclusive and to communicate. What's up, Charles?
Charles Baldwin: Good morning. I'm Charles Baldwin, I'm the Program Officer for the Universal Participation Initiative. I am an older white gentleman with a beard, glasses, and a mohawk. And today, I'm wearing a blue sweater, although it's far too warm for that. And to answer your question, Anita, yes. We are pushing this a little bit. Part of that is to have this moment, this virtual moment illustrate different methods of access. So today we have the captions. And we have our ASL interpreter. But our performance today will be in voice and in ASL. We're making or we're asking our captioner to translate, which isn't typical. And, so, yes, we're pushing the boundaries a little bit. But it's all an experiment sometimes in trying to define how we can make these virtual spaces more accessible.
Anita: One of things that I'm learning every single day, Charles, is that we have to practice. It takes practice to make habits. I forgot to describe myself today. I did a pretty good job on days one, two, and three.
Charles: All week.
Anita: So I am a woman in her far end of her '60s, I am wearing a dark jacket with a red necklace. I have shoulder length hair and I'm wearing glasses. Charles, one of the things and we have to acknowledge every day as we come together around this very important topic of inclusivity, that we are in a world that's struggling with it, an entire world and certainly a country. And one of the things that I'm thinking about is a feature of the UP program and something that I am seeing across the country that feels like an inflection point, is a real sense of commitment. It's not a one match, it's not a one conversation. There feels like a sense of commitment of persistence now.
Charles: It does require that vision, that mission, of really understanding the constructs that have marginalized people based on race or culture or language or ability. And this initiative that you've created here at the Mass Cultural Council, while sometimes the movement may seem slow, because many times it's incremental to get it right, it's also experimental. The key thing is to listen to the voices on the margins. Give them the opportunity to help make the change we're talking about.
Anita: You said two words this morning that I'm going to now, help myself too and start using over and over again. And that's fight perfection. Because that makes us stand still. If we are afraid to move forward, if it's not gonna be perfect, we don't go anywhere. So we're gonna be doing a little fighting of perfection today, aren't we?
Charles: A little bit, but again, with the agenda to help all of our listeners and viewers and anyone who's watching this after the fact, understand that these virtual spaces are now more critically important than ever to hear the voices who are not in the room.
Anita: So, let's get started. Yes, I know we have a lot of wonderful performances and people to talk to today. And of course, what we're doing all week is we're celebrating organizations and honoring organizations who have done amazing work, who have taken a leap of faith, who are taking a risk, who who are trying new things because they wanna be inclusive. And today we're gonna be learning more about two amazing organizations, ArtsEmerson and the Wheelock Family Theatre, which I know you know that well, Charles. And so, shall we get started? I'd like to introduce Emily Ranii. I hope I said that right Emily? To tell us more about the Wheelock Family Theatre.
Emily Ranii: Hi. Yes, I am Emily Ranii. I use she/her/hers pronouns. I have medium length brown hair, wearing glasses, and a gray shirt with tiny white spots. As we continue to fight for justice, visibility, and equality, we are especially honored today to be included as one of the Mass Cultural Council's UP award finalists. Wheelock Family Theatre at Boston university is dedicated to bringing the theatrical experience within the reach of every school-aged child in the greater Boston area. Access and inclusion have been fundamental to Wheelock Family Theatre since its founding in 1981. The Wheelock team believes that live theatre transforms lives, and that there should be no barriers to this transformative experience. Beyond offering three access performances per production, featuring ASL interpretation and audience description, Wheelock offers the following access points to every single performance: open captioning, enhanced listening devices, braille programs, large printed programs, a quiet room, fidget toys, and meet the seat opportunities. The theatre's space is physically accessible and the box office staff takes care to ensure that audience members who use wheelchairs can sit with their friends and family. Wheelock Family Theatre student Matinee series which offers reduced tickets to schools on a sliding scale basis, conducts extensive outreach efforts to schools serving students with disabilities, to ensure that every student's visit is safe and welcoming. A Wheelock teaching artist with a disability, regularly visits classrooms to provide pre-show drama shops and post show talk backs. Meanwhile, the education staff and teaching artists host on-site tactile tours and provides study guides and social stories to extend the learning before the curtain opens and after it closes. All on-site education classes are inclusive, and the Wheelock teaching team actively collaborates with families on making any accommodations necessary to ensure the success of our students. Wheelock Family Theatre has never turned a student away from our classes for inability to pay tuition, and annually offers over $100,000 in scholarships and tuition assistance. Which is all to say that, at Wheelock Family Theatre, live theatre transforms lives. We are passionate about the work that still needs to be done, and grateful to our community and the Mass Cultural Council for pushing our boundaries toward a better tomorrow.
Charles: Wonderful. Thank you, Emily.
Emily: Thank you.
Anita: One of the things that occurs to me as I'm listening to this is that inclusivity, I'm trying to make my video come on, but it's not working. But can you hear me, Charles?
Charles: I can hear you.
Anita: Okay. One of the things that occurs to me is inclusivity is not just about what happens after the curtain comes up, and when the curtain goes down, this is so comprehensive, what you're doing, Emily. You're thinking about way before a person even arrives at the theatre and how you're engaging before, during, after, and in between. How did you come to such a comprehensive approach?
Emily: Well, it really was in our founding. And we are all grateful to our ancestors and forebearers, Charles Baldwin among them. And, two of our founders, Susan Kosoff and Jane Staab for really learning and leading the way very early on. And we acknowledge that we are continuing to learn. And need to listen deeply and be responsive to our ever changing world, and also to the needs of individuals.
Charles: One of the things I loved, and this is a shout out, when we requested imageries for the slide shows that you all would have your moment. Of course, above and beyond, Jamie Aznew of Wheelock Family Theatre provided descriptions of all of the images, which I hasn't asked for, because, again, these 30 minutes, they're really tight. I'm asking for people to describe themselves. But I can ensure you, those descriptions will go in to the archived transcript just so they're there. Because it was wonderful to see that once again, Wheelock had gone above and beyond. So, thank you.
Emily: Thank you.
Anita: Congratulations, Emily. And thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. So, Charles, shall we move on to our next honoree today, which is ArtsEmerson? And joining us is Matthew Harrington. Welcome, Matthew.
Matthew Harrington: Hello.
Charles: Good morning.
Matt: Good morning. My name is Matt Harrington. I'm the Guest Experience Manager here at ArtsEmerson. I'm a white male in early 30s. I'm wearing a white shirt, I'm wearing a black striped tie. My hair is brown and short right now. My eyes are brown as well. I have a small beard as well. To start, from all of us at ArtsEmerson, we like to thank the Mass Cultural Council for recognizing us today at the UP Awards among other organizations doing incredible work for the access space. ArtsEmerson is committed to providing opportunities for everyone to connect to the stories they see on our stages. In line with the mission, we offer a variety of accessibility services to our patrons who are hearing impaired, Deaf, Blind, low vision, have ambulatory disability or cognitive disorder to make sure that they have every opportunity to engage with our work, and as an optimal a way as possible. But access is only one way we approach our commitment to social justice, and the never ending work of enduring oppression and advancing equity. From day one, our focus has been transforming our city's violent history around race using art to challenge audiences to reflect on the injustices they see, and to inspire them to take action. To speak out and stand up for equity in our communities, especially in moments like these. Today, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, and the global protests against police brutality, we ask you to take a moment to contemplate the additional challenges faced by the Black members of the disability community. Let's strive to be a more intentional. Let's strive to be more intentional as cultural institutions to see, hear, and amplify all intersections within our communities. There's still so much work to be done. But we picked a few photos from our ten-year history that encapsulate ways we have demonstrated our commitment to access, and that raise up our allies from the community who have helped us design experiences that work for everyone.
[Pre-recorded audio plays while a slide show is displayed at 12:30.]
Narrator: The Fashion Accessibility Project was a unique artistic event we presented with partner Milia Lazu to a sold out audience in the Jackie Liebergott Black Box [the audio pauses for a moment] in 2017. Local fashion designers were paired with models of diverse physical and cognitive abilities to collaborate on custom-made garments, in line with clients' needs and provide a creative outlet for clients to embrace fashion as a part of their identity. Members of the access community attended the event and modeled the fashions on the runway. With the guidance and support of Charles Baldwin, we were able to create an event fully accessible and inclusive of all abilities. We constructed an accessible runway, designed a seating plan flexible and comfortable for all audiences, and offered ASL interpretation, and audio description services. We also worked with our partners at the HowlRound Theatre Commons to live stream the event, and provide technical assistance so people around the world could access this one of a kind evening in the comfort of their own homes. We were thrilled to be part of the project, and provide the access community with an outlet for creativity and self-expression. In October, 2019, we honored Sabrina Dennison, at our annual World Alive gala. Sabrina has been an incredible partner and ally, as an ASL consultant for ArtsEmerson, helping to ensure access for the Deaf and hard of hearing community in all our programs. From the work on stage, to her talk backs, parties and play reading book clubs, the level of service Sabrina provides to our audience is unparalleled, and she goes above and beyond to ensure that the ASL interpreters she selects each show embody the essence of the company, the players on stage, and ArtsEmerson's values. Each year, when we brainstorm a programming for our next season, representation from the access community representation is at the forefront of our minds. For years, we have been trying to present back-to-back theatre, and we're thrilled to finally welcome them in Boston January in 2020, with their work, "The Shadow's Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes." This production in particular, was one of the first represented featured actors with diverse cognitive disabilities. It was important for us that's while the company was in town, we were able to connect them to the cultural access community. We invited the cast to come to a meeting with the UP lead cohort, where they were able to talk about their creative process and engage with institutions in Boston who are interested in learning about their work. To ensure the broad community could easily access the production, we partner with our colleagues at Howlround to live stream the performances. Our hope is that back-to-back, in "The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes," is just the beginning of a long line of programming we'll present at ArtsEmerson to reflect our commitment to accessibility. We believe the great way to be a truly accessible organization is to ensure that user experts have a say in determining our annual programming schedule. That's is why every year, we invite members from the ASL community to our season preview, and after party in May, to learn about our upcoming season's productions. These community advocates then meet with our artistic and art executive directors, to select the shows that they want to experience and have interpreted. We value this opportunity to engage the access community in our programming decisions. In doing so, we're living by our values of equity and inclusion to the point where our audiences feel ownership over the performances. Though we have yet to announce the plans for next season as a result of the pandemic, we're committed to ensuring that the ASL community will be a part of the decision-making process. And we look forward to the day that we can all gather again to experience the incredible theatre together.
Matt: Great. Before I conclude, I wanna say thank you, again, to the Mass Cultural Council for this recognition and to our peers for this nomination. We're deeply humbled to have been considered among an exceptional and innovative group of organizations. In particular, I would like to thank our internal access working group, Sarah, Jess, Ari, Brittany, and Craig, for always pushing us to innovate, and discovering new ways to be at the forefront of access in our sector. We look forward to continuing the work and reflecting the ways we can improve and refine our offerings, so we're responding to the needs of all intersections within the disability community, and ensuring all feel welcome in our theatres. Thank you, again.
Anita: Mathew, thank you so much. And, you are actually the first one this week, I think, or maybe this is the first time this week, we've talked about user experts, which is really core to the UP program. User experts are people with lived experiences, navigating the world, perhaps in a wheelchair or perhaps with a hearing aid. How did that work at your theatre?
Matt: Well, I mean, we've worked heavily within our own access working group, and sort of seeing, how can we better our theatres? And, there's nothing more than a user expert that can come in and sort of tell you what you've done right or what you've done wrong, what can you sort of get better here? Maggie Austin was sort of somebody we used as a user expert to help us sort of, ask her questions to ourselves and say, how do we do this a little better? How do we make this door not so heavy? How do we sort of make this ramp not as sort of steep? And, we were able to take a second and really see for ourselves how we could change things up by user experts like Maggie or like Sabrina who's been in our space as well. Sabrina is our consultant for ASL. So, they've been able to help us sort of take a look within ourselves to see how we can do better.
Anita: Charles, one of the things I was so impressed with is it's not just facilities issues. You're giving up some of your authority, you're giving up some of your power, even around programming. I think that must be tough for organizations to share the programming decisions.
Charles: I think some of that is changing too under the vision. Because, user expert is a term that's used in the design world. The idea of the user helping perfect it. But the very practice of listening to the people on the margins, representation falls under that. The ability to listen and respond to that. And organizations are just made up of people. And so, it's really just connecting on this one-to-one level, and being responsive to that. Who is a leader is also being constantly, consistently, persistently re-evaluated. And I think that's really important too. Who gets heard and when?
Anita: Thank you and congratulations. All right, Charles, I'm on the edge of my seat. I can't wait for the next part.
Charles: So this is where some of this virtual experimenting comes into place. Again, if we were in person, it would be a performance. And, it's still a performance, but it is still virtually. I had witnessed at a small benefit, a performance done by Queen Mab, which is a small microtheatre, set up for touring, Shakespeare and other pieces. But I had witnessed a scene from the Tempest that I thought was beautiful in both voice and ASL. So, I'm pleased that we can present a slice of that tempest now. And I'd like to introduce the director of the piece, Ms. Jessica Ernst.
Jessica Ernst: Thank you so much, Charles. And thank you to the Mass Cultural Council for having us today. My name is Jess Ernst, and I'm the director of "The Tempest" for Queen Mab, a microtheatre. I use she/her/hers pronouns, and I'm a white woman in her early 30s, with brown hair and a bun and wearing a sleeveless pink dress. The "Tempest" is considered to be Shakespeare's final play. And it's scenes of magic, language, love, control, and colonialism made it an incredibly exciting project to adapt. We have not only adapted the play of three actors, who will all play 11 characters, but we adapted it into a bilingual script for both hearing and Deaf actors. It incorporates both text as well as sign language. Hold on a second, there's an odd sound happening, and I wanna make sure it's not coming from me. Does not appear to be. Pardon me. So, we've created a beautiful bilingual script that incorporates Shakespeare's original text alongside translated sign language. Christian Johnson is our director of artistic sign language, and she has translated all of the character of Ariel's lines into sign, as well as multiple individual lines for other characters. Not only does this give us an adaption that's accessible to both hearing and Deaf communities, as both audience and artists, it allows us to explore language as a theatrical and thematic tool in a very rich and exciting way. We are able to explore spoken language and physical language, and celebrate the unique expressive powers of each tool. So before we share our scene with you today, I'm gonna give you a little summary. Our story begins with a magical storm off of the coast of a small island. Prospero, the former Duke of Milan who was ship wrecked there with his young daughter, Miranda, 12 years ago after being overthrown by his brother, Antonio, has used magical powers and the spirits of the island to call up a storm to wreck the ship that is carrying his treacherous brother and co-conspirators, and bring them to Prospero's island for revenge. Those co-conspirators include, the King of Naples, and his son, Ferdinand. The ship wrecked nobles are separated around the island and variously led astray, tormented by spirits and visions sent by Prospero. Ferdinand and Miranda meet and fall in love. Prospero slaved the island of native Caliban, fought with two ship wrecked servants to overthrow Prospero. And eventually, Prospero directly confronts the nobles, all of whom have thought him to be dead for the last 12 years. The king of Naples repents of the role in Prospero's overthrow, the families are reunited, and Prospero forgives his brother, Antonio. Prospero grants his favorite spirit, Ariel, his freedom. And all prepare to leave the island and return to Italy. The scene we're sharing today is from the beginning of the play, in which Prospero summons Ariel to report upon the success of the magical storm and ship wreck, and then plan their next steps. Prospero is played by Vincent Ernest Siders, who is a tall, statuesque African-American man, middle aged, with a salt and pepper beard, with long dread locks. He wears a long flowing cloak, which broadens his shoulders and matches the color of his beard. Ariel is played by Elbert Joseph, a young Caribbean-American man with short black hair, seated at a brown table, wearing a white colored shirt. Prospero's lines are spoken, and Ariel's lines are signed. Without further ado, hold on one moment, please. Let me set something up real quick. Make sure we're ready. Excellent. Without further ado, I'm honored to present "The Tempest." [Pause.] Charles, I believe we have a missing video challenge.
Vincent Siders: Ah, Jessica.
Jess: Yes, hello.
Vincent: Apparently, my video won't start unless the host turns me on.
Jess: Excellent. Let me take care of that for you.
[Pause.]
Vincent (as Prospero): Come away, servant, come. I am ready now. Approach, my Ariel, come.
[Elbert Joseph, the actor playing Ariel, communicates with Prospero in American Sign Language, while Prospero continues to communicate in spoken English.]
Ariel: All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come to answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality.
Prospero: Hast thou spirit performed to point the Tempest that I bade thee?
Ariel: To every article. I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide, and burn in many places; on the topmast, the yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors o' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary and sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble, yea, his dread trident shake.
Prospero: My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil would not infect his reason?
Ariel: Not a soul but felt a fever of the mad and play’d some tricks of desperation. All but mariners plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, then all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand, with hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,—was the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty and all the devils are here.'
Prospero: But, are they, Ariel, safe?
Ariel: Not a hair perish’d; on their sustaining garments not a blemish, but fresher than before: and, as thou badest me, in troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle. The king's son have I landed by himself; whom I left cooling of the air with sighs in an odd angle of the isle and sitting, his arms in this sad knot. Safely in harbour is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew from the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid: the mariners all under hatches stow’d; who, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour, I have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet which I dispersed, they all have met again and are upon the Mediterranean flote, bound sadly home for Naples, supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck’d and his great person perish.
Prospero: Ariel! Thy charge exactly as performed. But there's more work, hmm?
Ariel: Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, let me remember thee what thou hast promised, which is not yet perform'd me.
Prospero: How now, moody? What is thou canst demand?
Ariel: My liberty.
Prospero: Before the time be out? No more!
Ariel: I prithee, remember I have done thee worthy service; told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise to bate me a full year.
Prospero: Does thou forget from what a torment I did free thee? Huh?
Ariel: No.
Prospero: Thou liest malignant thing! Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax who with age and envy was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
Ariel: No, sir.
Prospero: Thou, my slave, as thou reportest thyself was then her servant. And for thou was the spirit too delicate to act her earthly and abhorred commands, refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee by the help of her more potent ministers, and in her most unmitigatable rage, into a cloven pine, within which rift imprisoned thou didst painfully remain, a dozen years. Within which space she died. It was mine art when I arrived and heard thee that made gape the pine and let thee out.
Ariel: I thank thee, master.
Prospero: If thou more murmurst, I will rend an oak and peg thee in its knotty entrails till thou hast howled away 12 winters.
Ariel: Pardon, master; I willl be correspondent to common and do my sprinting gently.
Prospero: Do so, and after two days, I will discharge thee.
Ariel: That’s my noble master! What shall I do? Say what; what shall I do?
Prospero: Go, make thyself like a nymph of the sea, be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else. Go, take this shape, and hither come in it. Go, hence, with diligence!
[The actors both exit as the screen cuts to black and music plays.]
Anita: That was absolutely incredible. Are you there, Charles?
Charles: I am. Jessica, Vincent, Elbert, excellent.
Anita: I have to say, that experience is unlike any I've ever seen. And you know what? It was a learning experience for me because honestly, I forgot to turn the captioning on my computer at the very beginning. But, what an incredible, not only acting, what an incredible performance? Let's just start with the basics. But, well done.
Charles: And I so was reminded, Jessica, why this appealed to me so much. I know that Vincent and E.J. have worked together. And at the time, it was all in the performance that translated the message. And I'm very appreciative of your work today, the actors, and our captioner, for allowing that to happen without a voice translation. And the way you played with the screen, and foreground, and background, and yeah, beautiful. Thank you.
Anita: Congratulations. Thank you so much. What a perfect addition to our UP Awards?
Jess: Thank you very much. And I wanna thank our fabulous actors one more time, Vincent and E.J. And I would love to give them a chance to come on video and take a quick curtain call if that's acceptable?
Charles: If we can figure out the buttons, yes.
Jess: There we have Vincent, and here comes E.J.
Charles: Excellent. Now, this is applause, but how do you take the bow in the virtual environment?
Anita: It’s like you take it in the real environment.
Charles: Excellent. Thank you so much.
Anita: Thank you.
Charles: I know Shakespeare, at 11:00 A.M, isn't necessarily for everybody. I was delighted to get a part of it. And this is all part of the Universal participation initiative's idea around how can we model accessible features in these virtual spaces. It's not an easy third space for artists and creative practitioners to manipulate. But that's what I'm so interested in seeing. So, we think about pace, we think about communication, we think about description, translation, multiple languages. And so in this 35 minutes, we've done a little bit of all of that. So, thank you.
Anita: The best practices are being written as we speak. And being written right here on our UP Awards program. So, tomorrow is a big day, Charles. Very big day tomorrow. And everybody has to join. The suspense, the excitement builds, as we reacquaint ourselves with Abilities Dance, ArtsEmerson, Discovery Museum, Towering Hill, Botanical Garden, and Wheelock Family Theatre. These are all honorees. Incredible examples of inclusion. But one of them, tomorrow, will receive a special $10,000 investment from the Mass Cultural Council to continue their work. But, can't tell you who it is, not till tomorrow.
Charles: So tune in tomorrow. It's like a cliff hanger, yeah.
Anita: Yeah. Charles, thank you so much, Angelina, everybody, Jessica. Oh my gosh! What an amazing effort today? And as I said on Monday, we are wrestling this digital world into submission. I know Shakespeare would have had better words to say that. But it was words to that effect. Thanks all of you for being with us today, and see you tomorrow.
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