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ACCESS Broadway NY

The Accessibility Journal · Vol. I · NYC Edition

ASL · Audio Description · Touch Tours · Accessibility Consulting

Live Theatre Access.

ACCESS Broadway NY is a live-theatre accessibility practice — sign-language interpretation, audio description, Touch Tours, and end-to-end consulting for Broadway, regional theatre, and national tours. It was founded by Maria Porto, a contributor to the forthcoming DEG accessibility guidance for sign-language interpretation in entertainment and a 2025 D-30 Disability Impact List honoree. Held to WCAG 2.2 on the digital side; disabled voices lead every engagement, from the table read to the curtain call.

A professional ASL interpreter in solid black attire signing in front of deep red velvet Broadway curtains, lit by warm tungsten footlights

Interpreter · Stage Left

The Mission

The Access Chronicles.

Behind the curtain of every Broadway, regional, and national-tour production sits a parallel craft — sign-language interpretation, audio description, Touch Tours, captioning — that decides whether a Deaf, hard-of-hearing, low-vision, or blind audience can experience the same show as everyone else. ACCESS Broadway NY is the practice that ships that craft to the same production-grade standard as the show it serves.

From the ghost-light routine to the Tony-nominated revival, every engagement follows one principle: Nothing about us, without us. Disabled voices lead, and the work shows. The practice contributes to the forthcoming DEG accessibility guidance, and earned its founder a place on the 2025 D-30 Disability Impact List — recognition for the sustained access leadership it took to get here.

The Mission Ladder

  1. The lineage

    Words that resonate.

    Rooted in a translation practice built on meaning, not just letters.

  2. ACCESS Broadway NY

    Access that matters.

    The live-theatre extension — bringing every story to every audience, in the room.

  3. The disability community

    Nothing about us, without us.

    The principle the work answers to. Disabled voices lead every engagement.

Inquire for the 2026–27 Season

Curated case studies

An ASL interpreter at house left signing during a Shakespeare in the Park style outdoor amphitheatre performance, with tiered audience seating at twilight

Case Study · Public Theater

Shakespeare in the Park

A Touch Tour + ASL-shadowed run that opened the Delacorte to Deaf and low-vision audiences without softening the verse.

A Deaf actor mid-monologue with a CDI mirroring the line in solid black at center and a hearing director seated taking notes, in a daylit regional-theatre rehearsal hall

Case Study · Eugene O'Neill

ASL Crew

An on-staff ASL crew embedded into the rehearsal room from day one, not a Saturday-only accommodation tacked onto previews.

An ASL interpreter preparing in a touring production dressing room, costume rack and lit vanity mirror behind, in black and white

Case Study · Into the Woods

National Tour

A traveling access protocol that holds across 14 venues, with local interpreters credentialed in advance of every city.

MP

Founder

Maria Porto

DEG Contributor · D-30 ’25