The Parkes Musical & Dramatic Society is once again leading the way with its latest production featuring captions for patrons that are hearing impaired or who struggle to understand the sung word. Musical Director Neil Westcott saw a production at the Sydney Opera House which featured captions. After talking to Director Lyn Townsend they decided to research how this works and whether it was possible to offer this for their production of Les Miserables.
Captions will be available for patrons booking seats in rows A to J and will be monitored by the caption team of Graham MacRaild, Kate Townsend and Emily McHugh-Douglas. This involves cueing every single line in the show manually, which takes a lot of focus.
“We are proud to be at the forefront of bringing this technology to regional theatre,” said Lyn. “Being a hearing-impaired person who wears aids myself, I understand how important captions are to people with a hearing disability. I also believe the captions will be great for people who miss a line, or where there are multiple lines sung at the same time”.
Les Miserables opens on Saturday, 14th September. Tickets are on sale at www. parkesmandd.com.au or Parkes Regional Business Supplies.