Theatre Operations Unleashed

The lobby is the first interior experience for any visitor to a performing arts venue. This episode addresses accessible routes through public spaces, accessible service counters, seating and queuing areas, accessible ticketing, and the particular challenges of historic lobby configurations.

The accessible experience begins before a patron or worker enters the building. This episode addresses site planning, accessible parking, passenger loading zones, accessible routes from parking to building entrance, and exterior site elements including grades, surfaces, lighting, and weather protection.

This episode expands the working definition of accessibility beyond physical mobility to take in the full spectrum of disability experience, with particular attention to cognitive disabilities, sensory processing differences, neurodivergent conditions, and mental health. It argues that physical access, while essential, represents only one dimension of a truly accessible performing arts environment.

This episode introduces Universal Design (UD) as a design philosophy that goes beyond minimum code compliance and aims to create environments, products, and services usable by the widest possible range of people. It traces the origins of UD, introduces its seven principles, and examines how those principles apply specifically to performing arts facilities and productions. It argues that a UD approach, rather than a compliance-only approach, is the appropriate standard for the performing arts sector.

This episode provides a snapshot account of United States disability rights legislation as it applies to public spaces, places of employment, and cultural institutions, with attention to venues and programs in the performing arts sector. It traces the development of federal accessibility standards from the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 through the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, and situates those standards within the broader arc of civil rights law.

This is the first in a series of episodes on disability in the arts establishing a baseline for the cultural and historical context for accessibility in the performing arts, tracing attitudes toward disability from antiquity through the mid-twentieth century and into the modern disability rights movement. It argues that the performing arts have historically been both a site of exclusion for people with disabilities and a site of representation, resistance, and radical inclusion.

Finding and centering yourself or your organization around the "Why" we do what we do provides a north star to propelling you towards success. Once you have that, you are able to head to what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. Tune in while I speak with Elizabeth Greer on the importance of finding your Why.

Join us in this episode as I am joined by professional actor and BFA/MFA coach, Elizabeth Greer as we discuss the how and why someone would want to pursue an MFA the theater. We dive into thoughts about what to expect, what you will need, and what are the benefits to pursuing higher levels of education as you continue your professional journey.