A deaf-led charity making the arts accessible for all 12 million people in the UK are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing. That means one in five of us rely on subtitles and captions to experience the joy of live theatre, to take guided tours around museums, or to see our favourite authors speak at festivals. Stagetext makes those experiences possible, and their CEO Melaine Sharpe, spoke with us about their groundbreaking history and exciting future plans. We were set up more than 20 years ago by three friends, all with different types of deafness, who attended the first ever captioned show in the UK, Anthony and Cleopatra at the Barbican in 1999. This first experience of what accessibility could look like unlocked something wonderful. They wanted to share their transformative experience with deaf audiences all over the 32
country and realised they would probably need to take matters into their own hands and do it themselves. Using our two decades of experience, we employ the latest technology and set the highest standards in access, to give everyone a complete and equal experience of the arts. Last year, Stagetext worked with 238 cultural
