By Kelsey Maurine Brickl
Ghost Light Access is professionally building a theory of the whole professional theatre industry and publicly explaining why resistance increases rather than decreases its determination.
Ghost Light Access praises audits on Broadway and the West End. It praises the abandonment of all future plans to use Yondr by New York theatres, including MCC Theater. It publicly praises practical accommodations when they are made by old theatres on the West End, such as The Theatre Royal Haymarket. It praises individual people who help, including front-of-house staff and security personnel who organize stage-door environments that are safe and equitable, especially for performers, passers-by on public sidewalks, children, and Disabled people. This happened, for example, at The August Wilson Theatre and at The James Earl Jones Theatre in New York City.
Ghost Light Access is also working to determine matters of equal access for audience members and professionals, with a current focus on non-ambulatory wheelchair users who cannot walk, climb stairs, transfer, or abandon their wheelchair. Some theatre management and ownership has been extremely helpful and collaborative. Others have not.
Ghost Light Access also leverages legal avenues and escalation where necessary to ensure compliance. Silence or “no comment” are not considered by Ghost Light Access to be neutral; they are themselves chosen responses.
Ghost Light Access has a clear position: the public record reflects that this organization is reasonable and has a professional stance about the professional theatre industry in which compliance with existing disability civil-rights law, engagement with Disabled audience members and professionals rather than stonewalling, and good-faith efforts to meaningfully improve access in all parts of the industry will satisfy Ghost Light Access’s mission.