ASL/Open Caption Performances — Page 2

I've attended and performed during many ASL-interpreted shows. It's usually an incredible performance and the interpreters very much get into it. It's not just word-for-word translation; the interpreters have to convey tone and intention, and ASL has different syntax than English. Much of the time when you see them just standing there or watching the stage, there's either stage business or they have to figure out how best to translate what is being said or sung. With all the made-up non-English words and double meanings in Wicked, for example, how best to sign that? It's very interesting to see different people's interpretations. No two interpreters sign a show the same way.

Anyway, I think it is an invaluable service to a very underserved community. As an audience member, I've enjoyed watching the interpreters as much as what is onstage. As a performer whose show is being interpreted, it means so much to have what you are doing being conveyed to even just one audience member who wouldn't typically be there.

I always love when shows have ASL interpreters. It's so beautiful.

CB4Ever said: "I bought tickets for the Hamilton tour not realizing that the performance I'm going to is ASL/open captioned. I am not hearing impaired, so I'm just wondering what to expect. Is it distracting, or does it actually help you appreciate the performance?"

Although a couple years late to this party, I can't help pointing out that the original question is off-base in assuming that ASL and OpenCaption performances are pretty much the same. In fact they're VERY different.

ASL (a signing interpreter) is more likely to be distracting to the non-hearing impaired ...or even in some layouts to obscure the view. The interpreter is often an extra person on the stage, seems to those who don't understand ASL to be "gesticulating wildly", and in order to be easily visible at all times must be strongly lighted. All one sees of OpenCaption on the other hand is a crawl of light bulbs in a long but not very high case. The case doesn't move, and as the lightbulbs supply their own light the box needn't be externally lit at all. Thus it's much less distracting.

They also serve different audiences. An ASL performance serves only those who understand ASL, which is typically the completely deaf and often some members of their immediate family. An ASL performance however is of no use at all to those whose hearing is failing (often seniors) because they could hear perfectly well most of their lives and so never learned ASL. An OpenCaption performance on the other hand serves everyone that can read ...which in our society is pretty much everybody: the deaf, the hard of hearing, those whose hearing aids don't work as well as they wish, anybody else who has a hard time understanding some of the dialog, even those who mostly listen but dip in to the OpenCaption once in a while to pick up a couple missed words.