I had a bit of a cautionary lesson in the last few days about providing services to persons with disabilities. The director of our Fall student drama production was approached a few weeks ago by a student in his class. The student is studying to be a sign language interpreter and wanted to know if he could use the performance as practice.

The director and I both agreed and the student and another more experienced interpreter in his cohort have been attending nearly every rehearsal for the last 6 weeks.

I was just preparing to advertise the signed performance in our ads and press releases when the assistant theatre manager mentioned that fact to the more experienced interpreter. He went into a panic and begged us not to publicize the fact.

It turns out we misunderstood the original intent of the request which was to simply just practice. The reason why they only wanted to practice is because they feared being blacklisted for taking jobs away from professional interpreters. I pointed out that they were students practicing on a student production at a college. Technically we are taking jobs away from professional actors but no one begrudges the students’ the opportunity to learn the craft.

The older interpreter having worked professionally (he was taking classes to improve his skill) in the community for sometime now was concerned that there would be trouble even if we billed the interpretation as a student effort. (Something I intended to do from the beginning under the assumption they might mess up now and again.)

My surprise at some of the stories he told me about problems people have faced in the past was somewhat mild since I have belonged to some small groups who have tended to be protective and insular. Not to make excuses for the extreme treatment to which people have been subject.

The situation did frustrate me to some degree though because we have tried to get signers before and were told they weren’t interested in traveling out to our location. Here were some guys who were willing to put the effort in and they were too intimidated to do it live.

I will say I have new respect for the process people go through to prepare to sign shows. I worked at a theatre that offered audio-described performances for the sight impaired. The preparation time the describers invested seems a lot shorter than what these guys tell me is involved with signing for a performance.

The cautionary lesson I referred to earlier is that offering services to people with disabilities is sometimes more involved than simply making plans and arrangements well in advance.

Of course, I also have a lot of respect for these two guys for coming out every night to rehearsal despite having no prospect of working before a live audience or given getting graded for the effort. I wish them luck. It seems like a tough career they are dedicating themselves to.

Just something quick to think about. The US population reaching 300 million has had a lot of press of late. I don’t know if you noticed though that the US fertility rate is only 2.1 children per woman and has been for awhile now. At that rate, the US population will hold static. We would have never reached 300 million from birth rate alone.

The population growth has been and will be, due to immigrants. So the question to ponder is, what is your organizations long range plan for serving your community in recognition of this fact?

If you have the brain power to ponder many things at once, try this for a bonus- Andrew Taylor links to an article suggesting a hybrid corporate status for non-profits. Or rather, hybrid status for corporations performing non-profit like activities.

On the whole, I think Andrew is right about needing a more flexible approaching with the tools we got. It is absolutely worth reading the long version of the article though if you feel the need for change.