Wonderful Future for Arizona Theatre Matters
Arizona Theatre Matters (ATM) officially embarks on an exciting new adventure - creating dynamic audio theatre with onscreen Sign Language and Audio Description. In partnership with Lisa Schulman and her company, ASL Me Now, ATM will create our productions with built-in universal access.
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| Lisa Schulman |
Schulman said, "AZ Theater Matters' Artistic Director, Jeanmarie Simpson is not only fulfilling a need but helping to normalize access at the planning stages when developing artistic works. ASL Me Now is thrilled to be collaborating with AZ Theatre Matters on their goal to provide universal access with each performance, rather than just for a few."
ATM's videos may be experienced for no cost via our YouTube channel. In addition to ASL and Audio Description, the videos are captioned with English subtitles and auto-translation in more than 300 languages.
Since its founding in 2012, is has been ATM's mission to normalize "accommodations" so that all their work is universally accessible, with every performance including all points of accessibility.
Since May 31 of last year (2022), ATM's YouTube channel has gained over 20,000 subscribers and more than 350,000 views. Our subscribers are in 29 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa, Namibia, Madagascar, India, Israel, Ireland, the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Cyprus, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Japan, Greenland, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway!
Because all of ATM's programming is entirely free to everyone, we do not "make money" from ticket sales. Our YouTube channel "monetization" has yet to reach a whopping $10. According to the YouTube administrators, when we reach $100, they'll send it to us. Hope springs eternal!
Meanwhile, ATM's programming is made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Living History Centre, and myriad generous individuals. Donations from just $1 to $5,000 have been made in the past year, and our budget has recovered to near pre-Pandemic levels.
As we move forward, the rest of our existing videos will be retrofitted with universal access components, which is expensive, yes, and vital to fulfilling ATM's mission - to create exceptional works informed by universal design principles. We breed originality, spark passions, nourish artistic convictions, and, in the process, make outstanding art.
In the coming year, ATM will create productions of The Jewish Question (Jewish Plays Project award winner), Bambino Mio - Bright Little Flame (the life of Maria Montessori), When Churchyards Yawn (Hamlet in Purgatory) and Shakespeare's The Tempest, directed by world-renowned theatre and film artist, Lisa Wolpe. In progress and to be posted soon is our acclaimed production of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood featuring the late, great Ken Welsh with ASL interpretation by Missy Keast, dubbed "the Shakespeare of Sign Language."
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| Missy Keast |
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| Carlin Thomas |
Carlin Thomas is Audio Describer for ASL Me Now and has been for many years at The Phoenix Theatre Company, and has expanded their services to live events ranging from the NFL to comedy shows to Disney On Ice. They trained in this skill with Artability AZ, and have trained others in live description as well. Passionate about making the arts more accessible as well as adding better representation for the disabled community, they are also a writer and director, and they prioritize inclusion in the work they create. Carlin lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona with their wife and four-legged family. They can be found on social media as @carlincreating.
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