Catie Huennekens describes the scene onstage. (Photo by Stephen Clatterbuck courtesy Virginia Voice Inc.)
Destiny Coles is wearing her earpiece. Sitting in a third row seat minutes before the curtain opens on a Saturday matinee performance of Virginia Repertory Theatre’s “Mary Poppins,” the vision-impaired 15-year-old admits that she’s never been to a professional stage production before. “I’ve been to school plays and stuff but that’s about it,” she says, visibly excited.
Coles will soon join a group of optically challenged theatergoers in receiving an auditory boost through wireless technology. High up in the balcony, actress Alex Wiles and special needs coach Catie Huennekens will supply commentary and play-by-play action to their earpieces. It’s a service called Live Audio Description, sponsored by the Richmond-based nonprofit Virginia Voice.
“I have my music stand, my binder with a script,” says Wiles, a Virginia Voice board member trained for this skill by the Raleigh, North Carolina-based organization Arts Access. Wiles handles the in-performance part of the description, and interjects herself into the action during the play — for instance, saying, “Mary lands gracefully.” Huennekens reads a detailed before-show scene-setting, and recaps the action at intermission.
“Mary Poppins” served as the final test run for a service that is planned for at least one performance of each major play and musical at Virginia Rep — and in other Richmond playhouses — in 2018.
“This is our first new initiative since the nonprofit organization formed 40 years ago,” says Jim Wark, CEO of Virginia Voice, a satellite radio station that serves vision-impaired listeners across the state by providing a signal where they can hear more than 120 volunteers read newspapers and magazines — “everything from the Wall Street Journal to Soap Opera Digest,” Wark says.
Jennifer Shields, who is legally blind, touches a chimney-sweep broom used in “Mary Poppins” before the show. (Photo by Stephen Clatterbuck courtesy Virginia Voice Inc.)
Before the show, Virginia Rep’s founding producer, Bruce Miller, invites the small group of vision-impaired patrons to touch, among other things, Mary’s clothes and bird cane, and Bert’s chimney sweep. Jennifer Shields, who is 24 and legally blind, says after the show that the tactile tour was helpful. “You can get an image of what it all looks like, and you’ve felt the costumes, and you can put that information together with what they’re telling you, and it gives you more of a complete picture of what’s happening.”