 Good morning and welcome to part four of the UP Awards, a celebration of universal participation and a way to acknowledge organizations in Massachusetts that are doing an exemplary job of including everybody. Charles Baldwin, you are here again, we are here again and you know what y'all who are joining us don't see is a lot of the conversations before we get started and I'm now led to believe that we are pushing the envelope just a titch more in terms of finding new ways to be inclusive and to communicate. What's up Charles? Good morning. I'm Charles Baldwin, I'm the program officer for the universal participation initiative. I am an older white gentleman with a beard, glasses and a mohawk and today I'm wearing a blue sweater although it's far too warm for that and to answer your question Anita, yes we are pushing this a little bit. Part of that is to have this moment, this virtual moment illustrate different methods of access so today we have the captions and we have our ASL interpreter but our performance today will be in voice and ASL. We're making or we're asking our captioner to translate which isn't typical and so yes we're pushing the boundaries a little bit but it's all an experiment sometimes and trying to define how we can make these virtual spaces more accessible. You know one of the things that I'm learning every single day Charles is that we have to practice. It takes practice to make habits. I forgot to describe myself today. I did a pretty good job on days one, two and three. So I am a woman in her far end of the 60s. I am wearing a dark jacket with a red necklace. I have shoulder-linked hair and I am wearing glasses. Charles you know one of the things and we have to acknowledge every day as we come together around this very important topic of inclusivity that we are in a world that's struggling with it. An entire world and certainly a country and one of the things that I'm thinking about that is a feature of the UP program and something that I'm seeing across the country that feels like an inflection point is a real sense of commitment. It's not a one march. It's not a one conversation. There feels like a sense of commitment and persistence now. It really does require that vision, that mission of really understanding the constructs that have marginalized people based on race or culture or language or ability and this initiative that you've created here at the Mass Cultural Council, well sometimes the movement may seem slow because in many times it's incremental to get it right. It's also experimental. The key thing is to listen to the voices on the margins. Give them the opportunity to help make the change we're talking about. You said two words this morning that I'm going to now help myself too and start using over and over again and that's fight perfection because that makes us stand still. If we are afraid to move forward if it's not going to be perfect we don't go anywhere. So we're going to be doing a little fighting of perfection today, aren't we? A little bit but again with the agenda to help all of our listeners and viewers and anyone who's watching this after the fact understand that these virtual spaces are now more critically important than ever to hear the voices who are not in the room. So let's get started because I know we have a lot of wonderful, wonderful performances and people to talk to today and of course what we're doing all week is we're celebrating organizations and honoring organizations who have done amazing work, who have taken a leap of faith, who are taking a risk, who are trying new things because they want to be inclusive. And today we're going to be learning more about two amazing organizations, ArtsEmerson and Wheelock Family Theater, which I know you know very well, Charles. And so shall we get started? I'd like to introduce Emily Reini. I hope I said that right Emily, to tell us more about Wheelock Family Theater. Hi, yes, I am Emily Reini. I use she, her, hers pronouns. I have medium length brown hair, wearing glasses and a gray shirt with tiny white spots. As we continue to fight for justice, visibility and equality, we are especially honored today to be included as one of the Mass Cultural Council's award finalists. Wheelock Family Theater at Boston University is dedicated to bringing the theatrical experience within the reach of every school age child in the greater Boston area. Access and inclusion have been fundamental to Wheelock Family Theater since its founding in 1981. The Wheelock team believes that live theater transforms lives and that there should be no barriers to this transformative experience. Beyond offering three access performances per production, featuring ASL interpretation and audio description, Wheelock offers the following access points to every single performance. Open captioning, enhanced listening devices, braille programs, large print programs, a quiet room, fidget toys and meet the seat opportunities. The theater space is physically accessible and the box office staff takes care to ensure that audience members who use wheelchairs can sit with their friends and family. Wheelock Family Theater's student matinee series, which offers reduced price tickets to schools on a sliding scale basis, conducts extensive outreach efforts to schools serving students with disabilities to ensure that every student's visit is safe and welcoming. A Wheelock teaching artist with a disability regularly visits classrooms to provide pre-show drama shops and post-show talkbacks. Meanwhile, the education staff and teaching artists host on-site tactile tours and provide study guides and social stories to extend the learning before the curtain opens and after it closes. All on-site education classes are inclusive and the Wheelock teaching team actively collaborates with families on making any accommodations necessary to ensure the success of our students. Wheelock Family Theater has never turned a student away from our classes for inability to pay tuition and annually offers over a hundred thousand dollars in scholarships and tuition assistance, which is all to say that at Wheelock Family Theater, Live Theater transforms lives. We are passionate about the work that still needs to be done and grateful to our community and the Mass Cultural Council for pushing our boundaries toward a better tomorrow. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you, Emily. Thank you. You know, one of the things that occurs to me as I'm listening to this is that inclusivity, I'm trying to make my video come on but it's not working, but can you hear me, Charles? I can hear you. Okay. One of the things that occurs to me is that inclusivity is not just about what happens after the curtain comes up and when the curtain goes down. This is so comprehensive what you're doing, Emily. You're thinking about way before a person even arrives at the theater and how you're engaging before, during, after and in between. How did you come to such a comprehensive approach? Well, it really was in our founding and we are all grateful to our ancestors and forebears, Charles Baldwin among them and two of our founders, Susan Kosoff and Jane Stobb for really learning and leading the way very early on and we acknowledge that we are continuing to learn and need to listen deeply and be responsive to our ever-changing world and also to the needs of individuals. One of the things I loved and this is a shout out when we requested images for the slideshow so that you would all have your moment. Of course, above and beyond, Jamie Aznev at Wheelock Family Theater provided descriptions of all the images which I hadn't asked for because again these 30 minutes they're really tight. I'm asking for people to describe themselves but I can assure you those descriptions will go in to the archived transcript just so they're there because it was wonderful to see that once again Wheelock had gone above and beyond so thank you. Congratulations Emily and thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. So Charles shall we move on to our next honoree today which is Arts Emerson and joining us now is Matthew Harrington. Welcome Matthew. Hello thank you. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Matt Harrington. I'm the guest experience manager here at Arts Emerson. I'm a white male in his early 30s. I'm wearing a white shirt. I'm wearing a black striped tie. My hair is brown in short right now. My eyes are brown as well. I have a small beard as well. To start from all of us at Arts Emerson, we'd like to thank so much the Mass Cultural Council for recognizing us today at the upper wards among other organizations doing incredible work for the access space. Arts Emerson is committed to providing opportunities for everyone to connect with the stories they see on our stages. In line with the mission we offer a variety of accessibility services to our patrons who are hearing impaired, deaf, blind, low vision, have ambulatory disability or cognitive disorder to make sure that they have every opportunity to engage with our work in as an optimal way as possible. But access is only one way we approach our commitment to social justice and the never-ending work of undoing oppression and advancing equity. From day one, our focus has been transforming our city's violent history around race using art to challenge audiences to reflect on the injustices they see and to inspire them to take action, to speak out, and to stand up for equity in our communities, especially in moments like these. Today, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the global protests against police brutality, we ask you to take a moment to contemplate the additional challenges faced by Black members of the disability community. Let's strive to be a more intentional, let's strive to be more intentional as cultural institutions to see, hear, and amplify all intersections within our communities. There's still so much work to be done, but we picked a few photos from our 10-year history that encapsulate ways we have demonstrated our commitment to access and to raise that up. And that raised up our allies from the community who have helped us design experiences that work for everyone. The Fashion Accessibility Project was a unique artistic event we presented with partner Melia Lazu to a sold-out audience in the Jackie Leiberga Black Box in 2017. Local fashion designers repaired with models of diverse physical and cognitive abilities to collaborate on custom-made garments and line the client's needs and provide a creative outlet for clients to embrace fashion as a part of their identity. Members of the access community attended the event and modeled the fashions on the runway. With the guidance and consulting support of Charles Baldwin, we were able to create an event that was fully accessible and inclusive of all abilities. We constructed an accessible runway, designed a seating plan that was flexible and comfortable for all audiences, and offered ASL interpretation and audio description services. We also worked with our partners at the HowlRound Theatre Commons to livestream the event and provide technical assistance so people around the world could access this one-of-a-kind evening from the comfort of their own homes. We were thrilled to be part of this project and provide the access community with an outlet for creativity and self-expression. In October 2019, we honored Sabrina Denison at our annual World Alive Gala, Sabrina has been an incredible partner and ally as an ASL consultant for ArtsEmerson, helping to ensure access for the deaf and hard of hearing community in all our programs. From the work-on-stage to our talkbacks, parties, and play-reading book clubs, the level of service Sabrina provides to our audiences is unparalleled, and she always goes above and beyond to ensure that the ASL interpreters she selects for each show embody the essence of the company, the players on stage, and ArtsEmerson's values. Each year, when we brainstorm programming for our next season, representation from the access community is at the forefront of our minds. For years, we have been trying to present back-to-back theater and we're thrilled to finally welcome them in Boston in January 2020 with their work, The Shadow Who's Prey the Hunter Becomes. This production in particular was one of the first we presented featuring actors with diverse cognitive abilities. It was important for us that while the company was in town, we were able to connect them to the cultural access community. We invited the cast to come to a meeting with the Uplead cohort, where they were able to talk about their creative process and engage with institutions in Boston who were interested in learning about their work. To ensure the broad community could easily access the production, we partnered with our colleagues at HowlRound to livestream one of the performances. Our hope is that back-to-back in The Shadow Who's Prey the Hunter Becomes is just the beginning of a long line of programming we'll present at ArtsEmerson to reflect our commitment to accessibility. We believe a great way to be a truly accessible organization is to ensure that user experts have a say in determining our annual accessible programming schedule. That is why every year we invite members from the ASL community to our season preview and after party in May to learn about our upcoming season's productions. These community advocates then meet with our artistic and our executive directors to select the shows that they want to experience and have interpreted. We value this opportunity to engage the access community in our programming decisions. In doing so, we are living by our values of equity and inclusion to the point where audiences feel ownership over the performances. Though we have yet to announce our plans for next season as a result of the pandemic, we are committed to ensuring that the ASL community will still be a part of the decision-making process and we look forward to the day when we can all gather again to experience incredible theater together. Before I conclude, I want to say thank you again to the Mass Cultural Council for this recognition and to our peers for this nomination. We are deeply humbled to have been considered among an exceptional and innovative group of organizations. In particular, I would like to thank our internal access working group, Sarah, Jess, Ari, Brittany and Craig for always pushing us to innovate and discover new ways to be at the forefront of access in our sector. We look forward to continuing the work and reflecting on ways we can improve and refine our offerings so that we are responding to the needs of all intersections within the disability community and ensuring all feel welcome in our theaters. Thank you again. Matthew, thank you so much. And, you know, you are actually the first one this week, I think, or maybe this is the first time this week. We've talked about user experts, which is really core to the UP program. Can you talk, user experts are people with lived experiences navigating the world, perhaps in a wheelchair or perhaps with a hearing aid. How did that work at your theater? Well, I mean, we've worked heavily with, you know, within our own access working group and sort of seeing, you know, how can we better our theaters? And, you know, there's nothing more than a user expert that can come in and sort of tell you what you've done right or what you've done wrong. What can you sort of get better here? Maggie Austin was sort of somebody who we used as a user expert to help us sort of ask us, ask her questions to ourselves and say, you know, how do we do this a little better? How do we make this door not so heavy? How do we, you know, sort of make this ramp not as not as sort of steep, you know, and we were able to take a second and really see for ourselves how we could change things up by user experts like Maggie or, you know, like Sabrina, who's been in our spaces as well. Sabrina is our consultant for ASL. So they've really been able to help us sort of take a look within ourselves to see how we can do better. Charles, one of the things I was so impressed with is it's not just facilities issues. You're giving away, you're giving up some of your authority, you're giving up some of your power even around programming. I think that's just, that must be tough for organizations to share the programming decisions. I think some of that is changing too under the vision because, you know, user expert is a term that's used in the design world. The idea of the user helping perfect it. But the very practice of listening to the people on the margins, that's, you know, representation falls under that. The ability to listen and respond to that. You know, and organizations are just made up of people. And so that it's really just connecting on this one-to-one level and being responsive to that. Who is a leader is also being constantly, consistently, persistently reevaluated. And I think that's really important too. Who gets heard and when. So thank you and congratulations. All right, Charles, I'm on the edge of my seat. I can't wait for the next part. So this is where some of this virtual experimenting comes into place. Again, if that we were in person, it would be a performance. And it's still a performance, but it is virtually. I had witnessed at a small benefit of performance done by Queen Mab, which is a small micro theater set up for touring Shakespeare and other pieces. But I witnessed a scene from the tempest that I thought was beautiful in both voice and ASL. So I'm very pleased that we can present a slice of that tempest now. And I'd like to introduce the director of the piece, Ms. Jessica Ernst. Thank you so much, Charles. And thank you to the Mass Cultural Council for having us today. My name is Jess Ernst, and I'm the director of the tempest for Queen Mab, a micro theater. I use she, her, hers pronouns, and I am a white woman in her early thirties with brown hair in a bun and wearing a sleeveless pink dress. The tempest is considered to be Shakespeare's final play, and it seems of magic, language, love, control, and colonialism made it an incredibly exciting project to adapt. We have not only adapted the play for three actors, who will all play 11 characters, but we have also adapted it into a bilingual script for both hearing and deaf actors, as well as sign language. What sound happening? And I want to make sure it's not coming from me. It does not appear to be. Um, pardon me. So we've created a beautiful bilingual script that incorporates Shakespeare's original text alongside translated sign language. Kristen Johnson is our director of artistic sign language, and she has translated all of the character of Ariel's lines into sign, as well as multiple individual lines for other characters. Not only does this give us an adaptation that is accessible to both hearing and deaf communities as both audience and artist, it allows us to explore language as a theatrical and thematic tool in a very rich and exciting way. We are able to explore spoken language and physical language and celebrate the unique expressive powers of each tool. So before we share our scene with you today, I'm going to give you a little summary. Our story begins with a magical storm off the coast of a small island. Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, who was shipwrecked there with his young daughter Miranda 12 years ago after being overthrown by his brother Antonio, has used his magical powers and the spirits of the island to call up a storm to wreck the ship that is carrying his treacherous brother and his co-conspirators and bring them to Prospero's island for revenge. Those co-conspirators include the king of Naples and his son Ferdinand. The shipwrecked nobles are separated around the island and variously led astray, tormented by spirits and visions sent by Prospero. Ferdinand and Miranda meet and fall in love. Prospero's slave, the island native Caliban, plots with two shipwrecked servants to overthrow Prospero and eventually Prospero directly confronts the nobles, all of whom have thought him to be dead for the past 12 years. The king of Naples repents of his role and Prospero's overthrow. The families are reunited and Prospero forgives his brother Antonio. Prospero grants his favorite spirit Ariel his freedom and all prepared to leave the island and return to Italy. The scene we're sharing today is from the beginning of the play in which Prospero summons Ariel to report upon the success of the magical storm and shipwreck and then plan their next steps. Prospero is played by Vincent Ernest Ciders who is a tall statuesque African-American man, middle-aged with a salt and pepper beard and long dreadlocks. He wears a long flowing cloak which broadens his shoulders and matches the color of his beard. Ariel is played by Elbrich Joseph, a young Caribbean-American man with short black hair seated at a brown table and wearing a white collared shirt. Prospero's lines are spoken and Ariel's lines are signed. Without further ado, hold on one moment please let me set something up real quick make sure we're ready excellent. Without further ado I am honored to present the Tempest. Charles I believe we have a missing video challenge. Jessica. Yes hello. Apparently my video won't start unless the host turns me on. Excellent maybe uh let's let me take care of that for you. Oh wait something come I'm ready now approach my Ariel come as thou spirit performed the point the tempest that I bade thee. My brave spirit who was so firm so constant that this coil would not infect his reason but are they Ariel safe? Ariel thy charge exactly is performed but there's more work now Moody what is thou Kant's demand before the time be out no more. Thus thou forget from what torment I did free thee. Laiest my lignin thing as thou forgot the foul witch Saccharac who with age and envy was grown into a hoop has thou forgotten her. Thou my slave as thou reportest thyself was then her servant and for thou was the spirit too delicate to act her earthly and abhorred commands refusing her grandest she did confine thee by the help of her more potent ministers and in her most unmitigable rage into a cloven pine within which riff imprisoned thou didest painfully remain dozen years within which space she died it was my art when I arrived and heard thee that made gate the pine and let thee out. If thou more murmurst I will rend an oak and peg thee in its naughty entrails till thou has howled away twelve winters do so and after two days I will discharge thee go make thyself like a nymph of the sea be subject to no sight but thine and mind invisible to every eyeball else go take the shape and hither come in it go hence with diligence absolutely incredible. Are you there Charles? I am. Jessica, Vincent, Elver, excellent. I have to say that experience is unlike any I've ever seen and you know what it was a learning experience for me because honestly I forgot to turn the captioning on my computer at the very beginning but um what what an incredible not only acting what an incredible performance let's just start with the basics but um well done. And I so was reminded Jessica why this appealed to me so much I know that Vincent and E.J. have worked together and at the time it was all in the performance that translated the message and I'm very appreciative of your work today the actors and our captioner for allowing that to happen without a voice translation and the way you played with the screen and foreground and background and beautiful beautiful thank you. Congratulations thank you so much what a perfect perfect addition to our up awards. Thank you very much and I just want to thank our um our fabulous actors one more time Vincent and E.J. and I would love to give them a chance to come on video and take a quick curtain call if that's if that's acceptable. Oh if we can figure out the buttons yes. There is there we have Vincent and here comes E.J. Excellent how do you now this is applause but how do you take a bow in the virtual environment? It's like you take it in the real environment. Excellent thank you thank you so much. Thank you. I know uh Shakespeare at 11 a.m. isn't necessarily for everybody I was delighted to get a part of it and this is all part of the universal participation initiative's idea around how can we model accessible features in these virtual spaces it's not an easy third space for artists and creative practitioners to manipulate but that's what I'm so interested in seeing so we think about pace we think about communication we think about description translation multiple languages and so in this 35 minutes we've done a little bit of all of that so thank you and you know um the best practices are being written as we speak and being written right here on our uh up awards uh program so tomorrow's a big day Charles very big day tomorrow and everybody has to join the suspense the excitement builds as we re-acquaint ourselves with Abilities Dance Arts Emerson Discovery Museum Towery Hill Botanical Garden and Wheelock Family Theater these are all honorees incredible incredible examples of inclusion but one of them tomorrow will receive a special $10,000 investment from the Mass Cultural Council to continue their work but I can't tell you who it is so tune in tomorrow it's like a cliffhanger yeah yeah Charles thank you so much Angelina everybody Jessica oh my gosh what an amazing amazing amazing effort today and um we as I said on Monday we are wrestling this digital world into submission I know Shakespeare would have had better words to say that but it was words to that effect thanks all of you for being with us today and see you tomorrow