Romeo + Juliet, Starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, Will Offer Open-Captioning at Every Performance

In a Broadway first, the current production of Romeo + Juliet, starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, will offer open-captioning at every performance. The captions are displayed on a permanent screen above the performance space at the Circle in the Square Theatre, allowing audience members in select seats a seamless viewing experience. Audience members have the option to select seats with open captioning when purchasing their tickets.

The initiative has been spearheaded by the show's Tony Award-winning director, Sam Gold. “Audiences with disabilities are not having their accessibility needs met,” Gold told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek, who is hard of hearing and an advocate for accessibility on Broadway. “I've been trying to find ways to right that wrong as much as I can.”

Gold explained that he had previously attempted to implement open-captioning technology in his production of An Enemy of the People, staged at the Circle in the Square earlier in the year. “The technology didn’t arrive in time,” he noted. Returning to the same venue for Romeo + Juliet enabled Gold to roll out the open-captioning in time for the first preview performance.

Many deaf and hard-of-hearing audience members feel alienated by their experiences on Broadway, said Gold. “I hear from deaf audience members that they give up on coming. I want that audience to love the theater.”

Open captioning and supertitles are already standard practice in many modern opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, and in theaters abroad. Additionally, Gold pointed out, “a lot of people at home now are using captions every day. It's become very normalized through Netflix.”

Gold emphasized that the opportunity to refer to the text during a show can be beneficial for a broad range of audience members, not just those who are deaf or hard of hearing. “Theater is a word-based art form," he explained. "Whether it's somebody who is just starting to lose their hearing, somebody who is a visual learner and likes to see the words, whether it's a deaf audience member—everyone should get to have that.”

The effort has come with its share of logistical challenges. "I cut seven minutes of Shakespeare yesterday in rehearsal—which means that's got to get updated in the captions. So there's all sorts of technical things." But, Gold stressed, “We do very challenging things in the theater. This is not high on the list of challenges. It’s about investing in access."

While an entirely open-captioned Romeo + Juliet is a Broadway first, Gold is hopeful that other shows will be inspired to follow. “I'd love to see this as the norm at every Broadway show. There's no reason we shouldn't have captions.”