How a deaf CUNY law student uses TDF’s program

Caitlin Parton is a law student at the City University of New York who spent her early twenties interning with a U.S. senator. She’s also a lifelong theatregoer, and the theatre is richer because of bright, passionate fans like her. Not that long ago, however, the theatre wasn’t very accommodating to Parton or the hundreds of audiences members like her.

Parton, 26, identifies as deaf, and though a cochlear implant gives her partial hearing, she still hears less than most people. When she was young, that seriously hindered her theatregoing.

“My mother is an actress and her father was a Broadway producer, so I grew up having an appreciation of the performing arts and attending Broadway performances with my mom,” she recalls. “I would enjoy them, but she would sit next to me and mouth what people were saying so that I could lip read when I missed it. We would watch movies of musicals before we would go to see the production, so I’d be familiar with it, but there would just be so much that I would be missing.”

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How can the theatre enhance your mind and your personal relationships? Just ask these students, teachers, and theatre professionals, who recently took part in Theatre Development Fund’s Open Doors Program.

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Look back on a new partnership between CUNY and TDF

The first year of the BEAT initiative (Bridging Education and Theatre), a new collaboration between Theatre Development Fund and City University of New York, has been rooted in the performing arts, but perhaps just as notably, it’s been grounded in basic ideas of community building.

Launched in January, BEAT is designed to introduce the CUNY community to New York’s performing arts through a range of programs. This semester, students at four pilot campuses—Baruch College, LaGuardia Community College, Lehman College, and Brooklyn College—participated in a wide variety of events.

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In this exclusive new video, the students in Black Girls Rock! tell us what they thought of a recent trip to see Memphis on Broadway.

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A national TDF program brings access to the deaf and hard of hearing

Experience the art and service of open captioning, a national TDF program that makes theatre more accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. This video features a 2011 production of The Crucible at Rhode Island’s Trinity Rep

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