1. Making every word count
Tabitha Allum, Chief Executive
tabitha@stagetext.org

2. Background to STAGETEXT:
• Founded in 2000 following trip to London by some
deaf New Yorkers where they brought captioning
with them
• 5 of our 10 Trustees and 2 of our 6 staff are deaf,
deafened or hard of hearing
• Currently receive regular funding from Arts Council
England but also make a charge to theatres,
museums and galleries
• Started in theatre, now expanding to other places
like museums and galleries

3. What does STAGETEXT do?:
• Deliver captioned performances in theatres and
speech-to-text transcribed talks in museums,
galleries and other cultural venues
• Help theatres set up their own captioning
services by advising them on equipment and
training local people as captioners
• Develop technology to widen and improve the
audience experience
• Promote the service to audiences

4. Why captioning?

5. Why captioning?

6. The audience for captioning:
• UK’s 10m deaf, deafened and hard of hearing
people
• 55% of over 60s and 71% of over 70s have agerelated deafness
• Hearing people who don’t hear so well any more
• People studying the play or topic
• People who don’t have English as their first
language

7. Captioning for theatre:
• Captioner is trained – levels of grammar and
punctuation are assessed before training
• Captioner receives electronic script and DVD
• Captioner prepares the text so it mirrors the way
the actors deliver their lines
• Includes names of characters and descriptions of
music and sound effects
• Captioner outputs text live

9. Speech-to-text for talks and unscripted
performances:
• Use a stenographer or Palantypist
• What is being said is transcribed using a special
keyboard and a phonetic shorthand software
programme
• The STTR doesn’t need a script in advance, but does
need all proper nouns so that the text is accurately
spelt
• Text is displayed on the same screen as the slides, or
on a separate screen

10. Open captioning in theatre via LED displays:
Royal Court Theatre
Gaiety Theatre, Isle of Man

11. Open captioning in theatre via plasma/LCD and
projection:
The Captioning Studio, Australia
Tin Bath Theatre

12. Closed captioning in theatre:
Fuel: Going Dark at the Young
Vic
Airscript in the West End

13. The options:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Outsource to STAGETEXT
Buy/share/borrow equipment
For theatre: hire captioner or train your own?
For unscripted events: STTR or revoicer?
Paid or volunteers?
Get together with other venues if you’re a
receiving venue and caption the whole tour
• Caption the tour if you’re a touring company
and share the costs

14. Thank you for listening
tabitha@stagetext.org
www.stagetext.org