People's Light & Theatre And Art-Reach Co-Host Fully Accessible Performance of STARGIRL, 5/3

People's Light & Theatre presents a fully accessible performance of Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl on Friday, May 3 in partnership with Art-Reach and Mainline Art Center. The evening begins with a sensory tour from 5:30-6:15 in the Main Stage. Participants will have the opportunity to touch costumes and props allowing a first-hand connection to the performance for audiences who are blind or have low-vision. For tickets, visit peopleslight.org.

Art-Reach enriches lives by connecting underserved audiences to cultural experiences so that they may benefit from and enjoy the transformative powers of the arts. Mainline Art Center will provide free art making before the show with an activity that will be sign language interpreted. Audio description of the performance will provide a narrative of on-stage action through individual headsets. Assisted-listening devices, American Sign Language interpretation, CART services and open captioning will be available for patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Braille and large-print programs are provided. Following the 7 pm performance, a reception will be held in the lobby.

People's Light & Theatre has long been committed to accessibility and its work with children with disabilities is highly-regarded. Wendy Bable, Producer for Arts Discovery Programs, says "People's Light is unique among professional theatres in that the impact of our work with students with disabilities is reciprocal. We create deliberate, thoughtful intersections between our artistic work and our work with these extraordinary young people so that each one amplifies the other and we're all active learners. "All Access Night" is not a one night a year commitment. We've internalized these practices as an organization. Working with these students makes us better artists, because we hold ourselves to a higher standard of clarity and audience-centeredness for them".

For the last two seasons, People's Light has been the recipient of the highly competitive VSA ARTS CONNECT ALL GRANT. VSA Arts Connect All grant supports the partnership with General Wayne Elementary of Great Valley School District and provides funding to programs that connect students with disabilities with inclusive, high-quality arts experiences.

This year, participants met once a week after school from mid-September through early December. Workshops were led by People's Light company members Susan McKey and Wendy Bable, as well as multiple guest artists from our holiday musical, Aladdin. The fall workshops focused on (1) building emotion recognition and expression through improvisation; (2) developing communication abilities through call and response (a stylistic component of Aladdin); and (3) developing social behaviors expected at performances with a formalized audience structure. At the end of the residency, all program participants and their families attended the People's Light production of Aladdin.

Thanks to Independence Starts Here for providing the equipment for our all-accessible programming and PNC Arts Alive for support of the Discovery Series.

To learn more about our partners, visit www.art-reach.org and www.mainlineart.org.

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