The Kentucky Center For The Performing Arts
Louisville, KY

Main Website: http://www.kentuckycenter.org

Accessibility Web Page: http://www.kentuckycenter.org/aboutus/accessibility.asp

Point of Contact

Martha Newman
Director of Access Services
Email Address: mnewman@kentuckycenter.org
Phone: 502-562-0711 or 562-0111
TTY: 502-562-0140

Overview

The mission of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts is to provide artistically diverse performances of the highest quality. The center serves Kentucky through education and initiatives that expand and diversify audiences while enhancing their understanding, appreciation and support for the arts. The center strives to challenge, stimulate and entertain while operating in a fiscally responsible manner and acting as an economic and cultural catalyst for the commonwealth.

Opened in 1983, the center is home to Stage One Children's Theatre, the Louisville Orchestra, PNC Bank Broadway Across America, the Louisville Ballet and Kentucky Opera. The center also offers artistic presentations that complement and enhance the work of these performance companies. The annual budget is approximately $7.5 million, and annual attendance is approximately 440,000. The center includes the Robert S. Whitney Hall, which is a 2,406-seat, multipurpose, concert facility; the Moritz von Bomhard Theater seats 619 and the MeX Theater (Boyd Martin Experimental Theater), a "black box" has a maximum seating capacity of 139. The center also manages the nearby Brown Theatre, a restored 1925 theater seating 1,400.

The Kentucky Center has been recognized nationally for their work in accessibility. In 2004, the center received the VSA arts MetLife Foundation Award of Excellence in Arts Access and the 2007 Excellence in Accessibility Leadership Award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Strategic Planning

The center's commitment to accessibility is tied to two of the core values of the Kentucky Center: "We believe all people have the ability to express themselves through the arts." and, "All people should have access to quality art experiences." The education department is dedicated to enriching the lives of all people in the community, region and commonwealth through the arts. Staff "believe that the human capacity for art is universal and that we have been called upon both to present art and to build bridges of understanding and access to the arts."

Professional Development

The director of access services annually conducts training for new staff and volunteers, and provides an annual refresher workshop for everyone. The basic training includes an overview of:

• the Americans with Disabilities Act;
• basic tips for interacting with people with disabilities such as appropriate language;
• how to provide captioning and audio description to patrons that come to the center;
• the center's access services, and how to receive them; and
• the center's access policies.

In addition, five departments—ticketing, custodial, maintenance, security and customer service—receive additional training specific to their respective departments. The custodial staff, for example, is responsible for removing seats in the theaters. While in training they learn why it is important to remove seats to remain accessible to people with disabilities that may be in wheelchairs.

Community Engagement

The Kentucky Center has a variety of effective mechanisms for engaging the community including an access committee created to increase awareness of the center's services among members of the disability community and to keep the board of directors informed about the center's services. The committee is composed of members of the endowment board, the board of directors, people with disabilities, parents of children with disabilities, professionals representing organizations for people with disabilities and older adults. This committee is divided into three subcommittees: services, partnerships with the disability community and board communications.

Partnerships are another effective means of engaging the community. The Kentucky Center collaborates with the Kentucky Arts Council to provide access services to arts organizations throughout the commonwealth. Other partners are the American Printing House for the Blind, the Kentucky School for the Blind, the Kentucky Assistive Technology Service Network Coordinating Center and the local Self Help for Hard of Hearing chapter. In 1998, 2004 and 2008, the center worked with the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing to host DeaFestival, a day of performances, visual art displays and activities all provided by people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

In addition, the center established the Arts Access Forum to develop partnerships between arts and cultural organizations, artists, and organizations that work with people of diverse abilities in the Louisville metro community. Representatives of the 34 member organizations meet monthly. Currently, the forum is awarding small grants to member organizations for projects or activities such as having a pre- and post-show discussion with a theater educator and providing ticket subsidies.

Programs and Services

The center started audio describing productions in 1992. Today, the center's staff offer this service to other performing arts organizations in the commonwealth. In addition, their services include:

• an accessible Web site
• targeted marketing brochures that reach more than 700 individuals and organizations
• a self-guided, 30-minute, audio-described tour, Images for the Ear, of the center's 20th century art collection
• courtesy wheelchairs and volunteer greeters to assist audience members using wheelchairs to their seats or event location
• an Access KCard which provides an opportunity to purchase reduced tickets to selected performances
• captioning and audio description equipment and trained volunteers for other arts organizations in the commonwealth
• a directory of 800 organizations in Kentucky that serve people with disabilities
• training manuals for captioning and audio description
• workshops on the Americans with Disabilities Act legislation and arts accessibility for all regions of the commonwealth
• a monthly, electronic, Arts Access newsletter
• volunteers that run the captioning and audio description equipment
• volunteers that interact with audience members, soliciting feedback and responding to questions

Evaluation

In addition to feedback through the access committee, partnerships and individuals, access services staff ask audience members to complete evaluation forms. In 2002-2003, staff surveyed all audience members who utilized audio description, captioning, American Sign Language interpretation, alternate format materials and assistive listening devices.

The center asks for feedback and responds to suggestions. For example, when the center first started captioning, staff asked a 7th grade class at the Kentucky School of the Deaf to attend a performance. The students agreed that the best thing about the technology was that the captioning didn't leave out any words. The center is committed to including all words—even if the synchronization is not always perfect.

Tips for Success

• Demonstrate for smaller arts organizations in the community that providing accessibility services does not have to be expensive and can be relatively easy to do.
• Conduct quality evaluation so that you can increase your services to people with disabilities.
• Learn to communicate your evaluation results strategically; for example, saying, "double the number of users we had two years ago" is more impressive than saying, "we have 400 users."
• Slow down; do what you can; and develop relationships in the community as you do your work.
• Work in partnership to provide better service to people with disabilities and to increase overall community awareness.