Oregon Shakespeare Festival Staff Honored For Accessibility Advocacy
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Access Coordinator Jim Amberg and Audience Services Manager Radawna Wallace were selected to receive a 2011 John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) Award for Emerging Leaders.
Betty Siegel, director of VSA and Accessibility at the Kennedy Center, in a recent email to Amberg and Wallace wrote, "Let me extend my congratulations to you both for taking inspiration from LEAD and for advocating for people with disabilities and building up the access services, such as captioning, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. You are both an excellent example of what emerging leadership in the field of disability and cultural arts can do.""Jim and Radawna have accomplished amazing work in the past few seasons, expanding and improving the accessibility offerings," said Mallory Pierce, director of marketing and communications. "Their work supports OSF's commitment to inclusion, and The Kennedy Center Award is a much-deserved acknowledgment of their efforts."
During the 2011 season, OSF will sign interpret nine plays for its deaf patrons, audio describe approximately 100 performances for its blind and visually impaired patrons, and open caption 37 performances for its hearing impaired patrons. OSF is one of the very few theatre companies in the country that provides audio description and open captioning on request. In addition, OSF distributes about 10,000 assistive listening devices per season for patrons with moderate hearing loss.
The LEAD award was created in 2008 to acknowledge arts administrators who are motivated by the LEAD conference to become an advocate for accessibility within their own organizations and communities. These individuals have successfully applied what they learn at the conference to open doors to and shape opportunities that are inclusive of people with disabilities and older adults in the cultural arts.
Amberg and Wallace will attend the LEAD awards dinner at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday August 20th in Louisville. More information about the award can be found at: www.kennedy-center.org/accessibility/education/lead/awards.htmlVideos