West End ‘Stranger Things’ Criticized After Deaf Patron Says Access Request Was Denied — OnStage Blog, Theater News

Hodding claimed the reason given involved “issues with copyright.” She also said the production told her she could receive a refund, attend the performance anyway, or return for a future captioned performance, which she said may not take place until September and did not yet have a confirmed date. 

That response, if accurately described, raises the larger issue that deaf and hard-of-hearing theatre fans have been talking about for years. Access should not be treated like a special occasion on the calendar. It should not require a patron to reorganize their life around the one performance a venue has decided to make accessible.

The Phoenix Theatre’s accessibility page states that access performances for the production include audio description, captioning, BSL interpretation, and relaxed performances. It also notes that caption screens are usually placed on the front of Box D, one of the theatre’s side box seating areas, and recommends specific seats for patrons who need to view both the captions and the stage.

That detail matters. Caption screens are essentially live subtitles for theatre, displaying spoken dialogue, lyrics, and sometimes important sound cues as the performance happens. But unlike captions on a television screen, they are not directly in front of every audience member. They are placed in a fixed location inside the theatre, meaning deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons often have to sit in very specific areas if they want to watch the show and read the captions without constantly turning their heads or missing what is happening onstage.

And that is really the larger issue here. Captioning is available, yes, but only on certain dates and from certain seats. For anyone else, access becomes a scheduling problem, a seating problem, and apparently, in this case, a permissions problem. That is not equal access.

Hodding has also pointed to the UK’s Equality Act and copyright law in her criticism. O’Dell notes that Section 31A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act allows for accessible copies of creative works to be made for disabled people in certain circumstances, including when a disability prevents the person from enjoying the work to the same degree as someone who does not have that disability. 

This is where the “copyright” explanation starts to feel especially thin. No one is asking for a script to be leaked online or sold outside the theatre. This was reportedly a request made so a deaf patron could access a performance they had paid to attend.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow is not some small fringe production trying to figure things out with a shoestring budget. The show, produced by Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions, plays at the Phoenix Theatre and has become one of the most high-profile stage extensions of a major entertainment franchise. The official site describes the production as a large-scale theatrical event set in the mythology of the Netflix series. 

That makes this all the more frustrating, because this feels less like an unsolvable copyright dilemma and more like a preparation issue. A production of this size should already have a clear access process in place for deaf and hard of hearing patrons who cannot attend one of the limited scheduled captioned performances. No one is asking the theatre to toss a script into the street. They are asking for a way to experience the show they paid to see. That should have been planned for long before a patron had to make a public video about it.

Hodding has been campaigning for “universal access” to captioning in UK venues through a petition titled “End Scheduled Only Access,” arguing that deaf patrons should be able to attend theatre with the same spontaneity as anyone else. 

And, that should not be a radical demand.

Representatives for Stranger Things: The First Shadow were approached by O’Dell for comment, according to his report.