Rose Condo: Why I’ve arranged live captioning for my poetry show in Harrogate

I am a Canadian spoken word poet currently living in Salford, UK.  I have won poetry slams, have performed all around the UK, and have written and toured two shows.  My second show, How To Starve An Artist, was runner-up Best UK Spoken Word show at the 2017 Saboteur Awards.

In January 2019 I received Arts Council funding to create my third solo show, The Empathy Experiment.  As part of my research and development, I was really keen to try having live captioning at one of my performances. 

This is new territory for me and I want to test out how captioning might contribute to widening access in live spoken word theatre for deaf and hard of hearing audiences.

What led me to want to explore this?  My incredible mum, Linda Pearce who lives in Canada.

My mum is bilaterally deaf, and she doesn’t use sign language.  She has had about 15% hearing for much of her life and is an amazing speech reader (Skype has been a godsend for living overseas!).

We have had captioned TV and movies for as long as the technology has been available.  As a young actor in Canada, I would give her scripts ahead of time to read through so that she was familiar with the text and story, much to her delight.

A few years ago, when my mum visited the UK, we went to a poetry event where I was one of several different people performing on the mic.  Mum was happy to stay and support me, but she shared afterwards how challenging it had been trying to speechread in a low-lit space with microphones in front of peoples’ faces AND trying to understand different accents.

It hit home for me that this type of performance – which has become a huge part of my life – can be inaccessible for my mum and others who are deaf, as well as people who don’t have English as a primary language.

So what is the new show?  The Empathy Experiment explores mobile addiction and its impact on our abilities to be empathic and compassionate.  

The premise is that I have embarked on a Day Of No Mobile Phones, and the show is the final hour of my ‘experiment’ wherein I capture data and try to prove my theory that empathy can be saved. 

During the hour long show, I invite audiences to give up their phones.  I hit a crisis of confidence towards the end of the show when I realise that I have overlooked how beneficial mobile devices are for some people (like my mum, who relies on it as her lifeline for communication) and I try to reconcile feelings of guilt with still very much wanting to address tech addiction.  

I have arranged for live captioning at my performance at Harrogate Theatre on Wednesday 15 May.  The Captioned Box will be stage right and ushers will direct people to appropriate seats.  

I will be performing the show in both the Greater Manchester Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe, and hope to find the funds to be able to provide captioning at one or two of these performances. 

And I am really keen to build conversations around this idea.  If anyone has thoughts or feedback they would like to share, please feel free to get in touch on rosecondo@gmail.com.

To follow updates about the show: Instagram:  the_empathy_experiment Facebook:  empathyexperiment Twitter:  @empathyexperim

Find out more about Rose at www.rosecondo.net