In the back of the Boston Citizens Opera House, Laura Pailler prepares for a matinee of “Funny Girl,” the revival musical about an aspiring comedian and Broadway star.
Pailler is here to provide an audio description of the performance. During breaks in dialogue, she speaks into a microphone to narrate the visual parts of the show for audience members who are blind or low vision, who have headsets to hear her descriptions: moments like characters hugging each other or a dancer’s facial expressions.
As the crowd settles in, she describes some of the sets for the show: “At the rear of the stage is a red brick wall painted in large cursive letters: The Ziegfeld.”
Over the past 10 years, audio description has become more widespread at local live theater productions. There are now about a dozen Boston-area venues that offer the option, usually for at least one or two performances during a run of a show.
In addition to audio description, many theaters offer “touch tours” prior to the show, allowing low-vision patrons to touch costumes and props to get a better understanding of the performance.
There are also large print and braille programs, as well as ASL-interpreted performances and open captions for people who are Deaf or have hearing loss.
Kim Charlson, executive director of Perkins Library — which circulates accessible reading materials — attended the Sunday matinee performance of “Funny Girl” and used audio description. She says that accessibility measures have “really taken off” in recent years, making theater much more accessible for blind audience members like her.
“Theater organizations have been really receptive to this because they want to open their audiences to more and more people and bring in audiences that have traditionally been sidelined by the lack of accessibility,” Charlson said.
Tivon Marcus, vice president of Broadway in Boston, which produced “Funny Girl,” said it’s important for arts organizations to bring live theater to as many people as possible.
“Our goal is to make sure that everyone can enjoy a Broadway show,” he said. “No matter who you are and what needs you may have.”
A visual story
Charlson loves live theater — so much that she often attended shows even before audio description became more widespread.
“I love the big Broadway shows. There’s so much fun. They’re flashy. They’re an extravaganza,” she said.
She especially loves musicals. After finally attending a show with audio description, she realized how much she was missing without it: costume changes, facial expressions, character interactions, choreography — all things that play an important role in the story, yet are not words spoken or sung by actors.
“There’s often visual cues that happen in a show, and they’re critical to understanding the plot,” she said.
During “Funny Girl,” Pailler also describes the characters’ appearances: Fanny Brice is “a woman in her 20s with long, curly, dark brown hair. She’s short in stature with a medium build.” When Nick Arnstein, Fanny’s love interest, made his entrance, Pallier described him as “a man with a chiseled jawline.”
The aim is to give the audience member information about what is happening, but not necessarily tell them how to feel — for example, a describer might say an actor is crying, rather than saying the actor is sad.
“My job is to give blind or low vision patrons as complete an experience of the show as I can,” Pailler said.
‘A new era’
Cori Couture, who has done audio description for 20 years, estimates that there are now around 25 to 30 describers working in the Greater Boston area and that there are around 150 live shows with audio description every year. Wheelock Family Theater was the first organization here to offer audio description in 1992.
“Our numbers are definitely expanding, and it kind of feels like a little bit of a new era where theaters are approaching it differently,” Couture said. “There’s more coordination and support from a big picture.”
There’s also been an effort to diversify the pool of audio describers and train more people from communities of color, to reflect the growing number of shows about more diverse topics.
Charlson works with the Perkins School for the Blind each year to publish a list of all the performances with audio descriptions to increase awareness. She wants everyone to be able to enjoy theater like she does.
“It’s [audio description] really opening up opportunities for blind and low vision theatergoers to be a part of what’s happening — being able to talk to your friends, your colleagues and say, I went to see ‘Funny Girl’ and then talk with them about it,” she said. “So it’s really meaningful and just allows us to participate.”
Copyright 2025 WGBH Radio. This story was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
