A new crowdfunding project at Kent has just been launched to create a play accessible for people who are deaf/hard of hearing or visually impaired and take it to Edinburgh.

Kasia Senyszyn who is supported by the Alumni Postgraduate Research Scholarship funded by alumni donations, is researching how to make theatre more accessible for people with hearing or sight loss, and is using her research to embed captioning and audio description techniques into a show.

The project, ‘Talk on Tour’, includes adapting the script with the playwright and working with access practitioners and deaf/hard of hearing and visually impaired members of the local community to develop the accessible strategies. Kasia and her team will then produce and rehearse the show and take it to Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2019.

Kasia comments: ‘By taking the show to Edinburgh, we can hopefully inspire other theatre makers and theatre lovers to think more creatively about access. It doesn’t have to be a last-minute add-on that disrupts the experience of the show – techniques can be integrated into the performance so that everyone can have an equal opportunity to enjoy it.’

There are 11 million people in the UK that have hearing or sight loss. Studies have shown that 80% suffer from anxiety, isolation or depression due to exclusion from social or cultural activities. This project aims to change that by producing an accessible production and presenting it at one of the biggest theatrical festivals in the world, in the hopes that accessibility will become more mainstream

You can support the project by donating via the crowdfunding platform, or following Kasia’s theatre company social media to find out about upcoming events; there will be a public quiz and raffle on Tuesday 5 March at the Parrot pub in Canterbury from 20.00.