More Minnesota theaters adding 'audio description' for blind people

By Jessica Bakeman

Audio description, which allows people who are blind to enjoy live theater, is offered more in the Twin Cities than anywhere else in the world — and after two decades, the program is still growing.

More than 70 Minnesota arts organizations offer audio description, a service in which a trained professional narrates the visual aspects of a performance to listeners via headset, said Jon Skaalen, access programs coordinator at VSA Minnesota, an organization that works to make the arts accessible for people with disabilities.

You can read more about that here.

Those theaters are mostly in the Twin Cities with a few others in Northfield, Faribault and the Fargo-Moorhead area. But thanks to federal grant money, theaters in Duluth, Lanesboro and Fergus Falls will soon join that tally.

Audio describer Laura Wiebers, left, related the action to blind patrons at a recent Fringe Festival show. She spoke through a mask designed to muffle her voice while transmitting to audience members wearing special headsets. (Star Tribune photo by Leah Millis)

The Minnesota State Arts Board received the National Accessibility Leadership Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007, which included a $30,000 cash prize to be used for an accessibility project. The board awarded $3,500 each to four organizations for new audio description equipment.

The other three recipients — the Duluth Playhouse, the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro and the Fergus Falls Center for the Arts — will offer the service for the first time this fall. They will share that equipment with other nearby theaters in nearby cities — Rochester, for example, in the case of the Commonweal.

The Duluth Playhouse and the Commonweal have already purchased the equipment, and Fergus Falls is near the end of that process. Once the equipment is in the right hands, audio describers in those areas will get a "refresher" course — they had preliminary training last year — and then they'll be in business.

While the service is more widely available in Minnesota than anywhere else in the world, "we don't have as much as we should or we would like to have," said Sue Gens, executive director of the Minnesota State Arts Board. "If I had a wish, it would be for people to know that this equipment is available. The goal is to get more people using it."