About Us

Scene and Sound is a community group made up of representatives from the Blind and Deaf communities, captioners, audio describers, theatre interpreters and theatre staff.

We are all interested in making sure that Deaf, deafened, hard of hearing, blind and partially sighted people enjoy themselves when they go to the theatre. We also want to make sure that there are enough people who are trained to deliver good quality assisted performances.

The website is the first step towards achieving these goals. At the moment, we are all working on the project as volunteers. Many of those involved have full time jobs as well as helping the project out.

We have managed to find the funding for the design of the website and for filming the British Sign Language clips. UnLtd Millenium Awards, the Arts Council England and Nottingham Playhouse have provided this funding. We hope to find some sponsors to help us keep the website up to date.

At the moment, the theatres do not contribute financially towards the website. We hope to expand the number of theatres joining us which will help to keep the costs down. It is important that the project becomes self sufficient within three years.

We are now looking for funding to train more audio describers, captioners and theatre interpreters and hope to start the training in about six months. We also hope to be able buy equipment such as headphones and captioning equipment. We will then be able to hire this out so that more theatres can offer assisted performances in the future.

Scene and Sound are run by a management group.

Stef Bell is the Chair of Scene and Sound. She is a retired Education Officer who has been audio describing for Derby Theatre (formerly, the Derby Playhouse) for the past four years. Stef is also a qualified Captioner and has captioned several shows for Nottingham Playhouse, Curve and Theatre Royal Nottingham.

Jill Hughes is our Treasurer. Many of you will remember Jill at Derby Playhouse where she worked as Front of House and Access Manager, helping out at all the assisted performances there.

Emma Jones is our Secretary. Emma is Head of Marketing for Nottingham Playhouse. Before this she worked at the Assembly Rooms in Derby. She is also a very experienced Audio Describer working for Derby Playhouse, the Assembly Rooms and at Nottingham Playhouse.

Other members of the Management Group are:
Sarah Gatford-Ball is a British Sign Language Interpreter (MRSLI, MASLI)who is often seen across the East Midlands interpreting shows into British Sign Language.

Colin Thomson, Ed Green, Barbara Nichols, and Jean Roulinson are all members as well.