My Accommodation Experience Volunteering at a Community Theatre
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t absolutely in love with theatre. I grew up dancing, took theatre camps every summer, selected drama class as my number one priority every year from middle school until I graduated and even (kind of accidentally) starting participating in musical theatre productions my last two years of high school. It wasn’t until last fall however, that I participated as a member of the crew for the very first time.
I had attended an audition for a play at a local community theatre, and after giving my usual disclaimer “I’m visually impaired and will thus be holding the script mere inches from my face, hope that’s cool,” the director offered me an extra large print script she had on hand. The first good sign. While I didn’t get a part, I got a call a couple weeks later asking if I was interested in helping with costumes. Despite having no experience in that department, I was thrilled and said yes immediately. As excited as I was though, I was also more than a little worried that my vision would stop me from helping in the ways that a sighted person could. Internalized ableism, I know, I know, but I’m only human.
From my very first day though, I could tell that I had entered into a warm and welcoming community. Despite the fact that most of the cast and crew had been working together for at least a month already, every single one of them was nothing but kind and friendly to me. I wasn’t sure if the two women in charge of costumes knew about my vision already, so despite having long ago convinced myself that I was a confident and capable blind woman, I delivered the news timidly and I believe rather apologetically. Not entirely unjustifiably, given the past nineteen years of people counting me out of things without even giving me the opportunity to prove them wrong, I tend to fear that if I tell people about my vision, I might miss out on things that I really want to be a part of. This sometimes leads to me trying to keep my low vision from people until it’s too late for them to change their minds and then just kind of going, “oh by the way, I’m legally blind but I’ll try not to make it a problem.” Not a good plan. Anyway, this time I didn’t try to play sighted and told them right away. And they were pretty much just, cool with it. Or at very least, if they weren’t, they handled their worries thoughtfully and productively instead of reactively. I can’t recall the exact conversation, but I believe it went something like “just let us know what works for you and what doesn’t.
We spent a lot of time working in dim lighting backstage in small, kind of awkwardly shaped areas with random chords, tables and other possible tripping hazards. They asked me if I needed a little extra light to get through certain areas or if there were any objects that were particularly hazardous, and when I told them what I could navigate safely they just... believed me.
The play had a lot of quick changes, which meant I had to maneuver a number of different buttons, clasps and individually complicated jewelry. They showed me what to do, more than once and up close if I asked them. If there was a part of a task I found challenging, I could do the part that I felt comfortable with until I had time to practice the more difficult aspect. My supervisors trusted me to know my own vision and my own abilities, to advocate for myself when I needed to and to problem solve and work towards a solution when I was having a vision-related problem. When I made mistakes, they never made it a big deal or took one little vision-related slip up to mean that I was incapable. As a result, by the end of the production, I had learned to do most of the things that many past, presumably well-meaning, supervisors would have just cut me out of the moment they realized I was struggling.
About a month later, I auditioned for another play at the same theatre. I got a small part but also had the opportunity to be one of the assistant stage managers. While most of the people I was answering to weren’t the same, the attitude was. “Let us know what works for you, communicate, try your best and we’ll do all we can to accommodate you.” We checked in throughout the months of rehearsals and then production. I did my best to be as helpful as I could and to be proactive about it. When we moved from the rehearsal room onto the stage, people made sure that I could move around backstage safely, that there was enough lighting and that I knew where things were, but they didn’t just take me by the hand and tell me how they were going to or not going to accommodate me, they actually asked me what I needed.
And I’m not saying that I could do everything as easily or as simply as a sighted person could. For example, I was originally supposed to pour dyed water from a fancily shaped and extremely breakable decanter into small, see through glasses and to stack a number of heavy and breakable dishes onto a tray and collect dishes which had been discarded in different places each night. I fretted about this for weeks and felt more than a little guilty, sure that they had made a mistake in casting me in the first place and assuming that they must have been thinking the same thing. And yes, a more confident person probably would have just initiated a conversation about it, but like I said before, I was a little afraid that if I told them I couldn’t do it, they wouldn’t want to work with me again. So this went on for several weeks and opening night was creeping closer and closer and despite multiple people’s assurances that things happen and it really wouldn’t be a big deal, I just kept thinking, “what if I drop something?” And then the stage manager and a couple other people took me aside and had a conversation with me and just asked me how I felt about it. Despite my near-constant apologizing, it didn’t feel like they were guilting me once. They just wanted to know how to make the situation better for me. So we had a good conversation about it and they did wind up having to change a couple things but it actually added a little cool new element to the play. And that was that. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt.
Maybe these seem like little things, but I think it’s so important for people to know that it’s possible to accommodate blind and visually impaired people and acknowledge their differences while still treating us like, well, people. That yeah, sometimes we might not be quite as quick or as low maintenance as a sighted person when we’re completing certain tasks, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have totally valuable skills and perspectives to share if you just give us a chance to share them. If you just take the time to actually have a conversation. The whole experience was heartwarming and such a breath of fresh air and I really hope that more people can make an effort to handle accommodation in this kind of way.
by Acacia