by Kelsey Maurine Brickl
A recent theatre discussion centered on audience members filming curtain calls.
The conversation produced strong opinions, familiar arguments, and a great deal of concern about theatrical etiquette. It also overlooked a much larger accessibility issue hiding in plain sight.
For wheelchair users, the curtain-call problem doesn’t come down to whether or not they are allowed to record the curtain call on their cell phone. The problem is much more basic. It’s whether they can stand to see the curtain call at all.
When discussions arise about filming curtain calls, the assumption is often that the final moments of a performance are visible to everyone in the room. Then the disagreement concerns whether recording those moments is appropriate, but for many wheelchair users, visibility itself is the first issue, and everything else comes later.
Wheelchair-accessible seating on Broadway and in the West End is rarely, if ever, located in the front row. In some theatres, wheelchair users are seated at the rear of a section. In others, the designated spaces are integrated into rows somewhere in the middle in the auditorium. Some theatres have boxes or loges for wheelchair users. The exact location varies from venue to venue.
What does not vary is basic geometry and medical reality in the orchestra or stalls. When several hundred people stand at once, the wheelchair user remains seated, and a standing audience can turn the final minutes of a performance into a wall of backs, coats, handbags, and shoulders.
The effect is particularly noticeable during productions with extended bows, speeches, acknowledgements, charity appeals, musical reprises, specially choreographed finales, special-event presentations, or curtain-call sequences that are themselves part of the artistic experience.
The standing ovation is usually discussed as an expression of appreciation for performers’ hard work. But Disabled patrons are ticketed patrons, and a ticketed patron who cannot stand may lose access to part of the performance environment because everyone around them can. That circumstance has become so normalized that many theatre-goers no longer notice it.
The physical realities of theatre attendance are already different for many Disabled patrons. Getting to the venue may require accessible transit planning, paratransit scheduling, rideshare coordination, companion assistance, or additional travel time. Accessible seating often requires advance communication. Elevators and lifts must be operational. Toilets must be accessible. Medical equipment, fatigue, pain, heat sensitivity, medications, and crowd conditions may all require active management. A night at the theatre can involve hours of preparation before the first line is spoken.
The performance ends. The audience rises. The wheelchair user remains seated. The final moments disappear behind standing bodies.
This situation appears frequently enough that many wheelchair users simply expect it and accept it. But that expectation does not resolve the access issue. It merely demonstrates how thoroughly it has been absorbed into theatre culture.
The legal questions vary by jurisdiction. In the United States, theatres are places of public accommodation under ADA Title III. Broadway theatres may also be subject to the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law. In the United Kingdom, theatres providing services to the public are subject to the Equality Act 2010.
Every venue is different. Every auditorium is different. Every seating configuration is different. The recurring physical circumstance is remarkably consistent. One group of patrons can stand. Another group cannot.
The result is that the paying, ticketed patrons with the least flexibility of movement are frequently the ones who lose sight of the performance first.
The irony is difficult to miss. Theatre communities will devote enormous energy to debates about the ethics of recording a curtain call as far as doing so affect other ticketed patrons and performers. They will discuss audience etiquette, performer rights, theatrical tradition, artistic integrity, social media, archival value, and changing audience expectations.
Meanwhile, wheelchair users across Broadway and the West End continue encountering a much simpler obstacle. The people in front of them stand up. Then they lose access. They can’t see what they paid for. No phone is required. No recording is required. No violation of house policy is required. Their paid product is gone.
Broadway and West End theatres routinely send ushers into auditoriums carrying illuminated “no cell phones” signs. They make pre-show announcements. They project warnings. They stop performances. They remove patrons. They devote significant operational attention to recording because they have decided that recording matters.
Yet every night, wheelchair users across Broadway and the West End lose sight of the final moments of performances they paid to attend because the audience in front of them stands.
Theatres in both the United States and the United Kingdom operate under legal disability-access obligations owed to all ticketed patrons, not merely those who can stand.
If recording is important enough to justify operational intervention, signage, announcements, staff training, published opinion pieces, and enforcement, why is the accessibility impact of standing ovations treated as beyond discussion?
That question is not directed at audiences. It is directed at the institutions that manage the room.