By: Kelsey Maurine Brickl
The most revealing part of my recent exchange with The Stage was not the publication of my civil rights-oriented corrective response. As I informed them after their staff initially wished to publish it belatedly, in July, they needed to publish it in in a timely fashion in order to operate in good faith, and they did so. The most surprising and disappointing discovery, and perhaps the most unfortunately affirming why Ghost Light Access exists in the first place, was where this theatre publication put it.
Readers may recall that The Stage recently published and promoted an opinion piece by a regular columnist advocating blanket phone bans in theatres. The article framed the issue as one of persistently annoying audience behaviour and foundationally of theatre etiquette.
The central problem with that framing is that it entirely omits a legally and operationally significant distinction: not all device use in theatres is audience misconduct, operational conduct rules exist already and should be better enforced, and disability civil rights law firmly overrides preference.
Many Disabled patrons rely on phones, smartwatches, tablets, AAC devices, hearing-assistance technology, medical-monitoring systems, caregiver communication, emergency communication, and other disability-related access technology in order to attend performances safely and equally. These devices are not props, distractions, or conveniences. They aren’t optional and can’t be left at home or tucked into Yondr pouches. They are often integral to access itself.
And actors can’t tell from the stage (and neither can fellow patrons from across the theatre) whether someone is rudely and casually texting or adjusting a hearing aid or acknowledging a catastrophic low blood sugar or seizure alert.
So when that distinction is omitted in an opinion piece that is published and promoted across all platforms, readers are left with the impression that all device use belongs in the same category and can therefore be addressed through blanket prohibitions and without any counterpoint rooted in civil rights law that already exists.
That is not merely incomplete. It has real consequences for how theatres, audiences, staff, and policymakers understand accessibility obligations, and it can also encourage the kind of bullying we’ve seen in comment sections and in person.
Because of that omission, I submitted a response.
I did not submit it as an irritated audience member. I did not submit it as a fan. I did not submit it as someone participating in a cultural debate about manners.
I submitted it in my professional capacity. I submitted it as a disability-access and legal-compliance correction.
When I signed the letter, I specifically signed it as “Kelsey Maurine Brickl, Founder and Director of Ghost Light Access and Founder and Director of Accessible France.”
That distinction was repeatedly explained to The Stage before publication. I’ve earned the right to be acknowledged that way.
The publication was also repeatedly informed in advance that the issue concerned disability-access compliance, protected device use, Equality Act obligations, and the distinction between ordinary audience misconduct and disability-related access technology. The Stage was informed that presenting the response as generic reader correspondence or a minor disagreement about the columnist’s words would fundamentally mischaracterize both the nature of the correction and the role in which it was being provided.
The response was nevertheless published within a general letters roundup. Not only that, but my professional credentials I had supplied with the submission were omitted. The letter was not presented as specialist accessibility commentary, but rather as if it were a complaint of a reader or a passing response. Under my name, instead of my professional titles and the names of my businesses and theatre access project lay the words “email supplied.”
Most remarkably, the disability civil rights letter was placed directly beneath a letter cheering on and supporting the very same blanket-ban framing that the correction existed to address.
This matters enormously because in journalism, editorial framing is not neutral. Websites don’t design themselves yet. There are choices made by humans in deciding what goes where when.
It was a choice to put the corrective letter from Ghost Light Access regarding the reality that many Disabled patrons rely on phones, smartwatches, tablets, AAC devices, hearing-assistance technology, medical-monitoring systems, caregiver communication, emergency communication, and other disability-related access technologies right beneath a letter cheering on an opinion piece calling for a uniform ban on such devices.
A reader encountering a standalone article by a named regular columnist understands that they are reading a professional contribution to a public conversation. A reader encountering a collection of letters understands something different. They understand that they are looking at a collection of reader reactions.
Those categories carry different authority, different expectations, and different interpretive weight.
The issue here is not that The Stage failed to flatter me with a byline or headshot. The issue is that the publication made a series of specific editorial choices about how accessibility-compliance information would be presented, contextualized, and circulated, and those choices changed the category of the correction.
The original opinion piece called for a blanket ban on devices in theatres and was published and promoted without addressing disability-related device use or the accessibility obligations that attach to it. My response was a disability-rights and legal-compliance intervention, but it was presented as a reader disagreement about theatre etiquette. Professional accessibility analysis was converted into ordinary correspondence. A correction concerning Equality Act obligations was treated in email correspondence as a matter of editorial “goodwill.” Equitable presentation was requested in advance, for clear reasons, and was refused in practice through the format chosen.
Theatre professionals are generally capable of understanding that a wheelchair is not the same thing as a stroller. Most understand that a service dog is not the same thing as a pet. Most understand that a hearing loop is not the same thing as a pair of headphones.
Yet discussions of phones and devices repeatedly collapse these distinctions, and that is part of why the letter, written professionally on behalf of Ghost Light Access as a corrective piece, needed to be published in full and presented properly in The Stage UK.
In light of these circumstances, I have submitted a formal complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code. The complaint addresses the materially misleading omission in the original opinion piece and The Stage’s inadequate presentation and framing of the corrective response; it is currently under assessment.
Here is the full corrective letter I submitted to The Stage UK with my professional credentials:
Letter: Calls For Phone-Free Theatre Policies Are Becoming an Access Threat
Theatre policies regarding phones are too often discussed as though the only relevant question is whether audiences should be stopped from filming, texting, or interrupting performers.
Those are conduct issues, and theatres must manage them properly. But blanket phone-free or no-device policies become dangerous when communicated or celebrated as a rule affecting everyone without serious disability-access analysis.
Disabled audience members often rely on phones, smartwatches, tablets, AAC devices, and other devices that are necessary for seizure alerts, cardiac monitoring, diabetes management, communication and coordination with caregivers, mobility and power wheelchair controls, anaphylaxis response, and many more legitimate, time-sensitive issues.
These technological access tools are legally protected and allow Disabled patrons equal access to the theatre.
A device used for disability-related access is not equivalent to rudely using a device used to interrupt or record a performance.
Critically, that distinction can’t be identified by an actor, usher, audience member, or security.
That’s why public discourse flattening all phone use as ordinary audience misconduct puts Disabled patrons at foreseeable risk. It invites staff and the public to view necessary, legally protected access technology as defiant bad manners.
Theatres must address conduct rules accurately and enforce them appropriately by strictly prohibiting filming, photography, calls, livestreaming, and disruptive use while making it very clear that any and all disability-related device possession and access remain protected and will be handled without humiliation, delay, or exclusion.
Venues or productions promoting a phone-free policy to benefit performers and audiences must also publish clear disability-access information with equal prominence to the restriction itself.
Disabled patrons must not feel they need to defend themselves or plead for permission to safely attend.
Access on Broadway and the West End is not a loophole in etiquette but part of the Disabled public’s equal right to be there.
Author biography: Kelsey Maurine Brickl is the Founder and Director of Ghost Light Access and Accessible France. She works on disability access, civil-rights compliance, and public accommodation in live entertainment, cultural venues, and travel. She performs “sit down” comedy and is a historian and writer. She is based in New York City and also works in London and France.
Image: The headshot of the author, Kelsey Maurine Brickl, provided to The Stage in order for the disability-access letter from Ghost Light Access to receive substantially equivalent public presentation and promotion and to reach the same audience exposed as the original framing. Otherwise, the response risked becoming archival rather than corrective.
Update – 7 July, 2026
Since this post was published, The Stage has continued to publish and promote substantial accessibility reporting, including Giverny Masso’s “News feature: how well is theatre tackling accessibility and where can it improve?” and further coverage concerning backstage accessibility in historic West End theatres. I welcome that reporting. I have also publicly credited The Stage where its coverage has advanced useful discussion, including in my own professional commentary responding to “Shaftesbury Theatre CEO: West End faces real accessibility challenge.”
The record now contains a sharper contrast, becauseThe Stage is plainly capable of treating disability access as a standalone editorial subject involving institutional structure, theatre policy, backstage conditions, employment, funding, leadership, and operational reform. It can publish those pieces under named journalists, promote them publicly, and present accessibility expertise as expertise rather than casual reader reaction.
My correction, however, received different treatment. It was submitted as a professional disability-access and legal-compliance correction from Ghost Light Access concerning protected device use, Equality Act obligations, and the foreseeable harm caused when all phone use is collapsed into audience misconduct. I supplied professional attribution and repeatedly explained the corrective function of the piece before publication. The Stage nevertheless published it in a general letters roundup, without the supplied professional context, and in a format that changed the public category of the correction.
I have provided these subsequent developments to both The Stage and IPSO so the record remains complete and contemporaneous.
I am not asking The Stage to stop reporting on accessibility. It is crucial that coverage of these issues continue thoroughly and honestly. I am asking why a publication capable of treating disability access as serious editorial subject matter reduced a Disabled professional’s access-law correction, concerning its own published framing of a regular columnist’s call for a blanket ban on devices often used to ensure safe and equal access to theatre, to “just another letter.”
That question remains under review and has been escalated through the appropriate regulatory process.