ACCESS Broadway NY
About the Founder
Founder
Maria Porto
Lead Producer, Sign Language Services. Author, DEG industry guidelines. 2025 D-30 Disability Impact List honoree.
The work behind ACCESS Broadway NY
Credential
Lead Producer, Sign Language Services
Leads sign-language services built on translation that holds meaning, not just letters.
Credential
DEG industry guidelines author
Co-authored the reference document the entertainment industry now works from for sign-language interpretation.
Credential
2025 D-30 Disability Impact List honoree
Recognized among the 30 people most shaping the future of disability in 2025.
Credential
Founder, ACCESS Broadway NY
Independent consultancy bringing access work directly to venues and productions — access built into the show, not bolted on.
Why ACCESS Broadway NY exists
Sign-language access on Broadway was for decades treated as a one-off accommodation — a single ASL-shadowed Saturday matinee, booked late, staged on the wing of a wing. The mission of ACCESS Broadway NY is to move that work from afterthought to architecture.
ACCESS Broadway NY is what Maria built so the work could continue at the venue level — show by show, run by run, with disabled voices in the room from the table read forward.
That looks like access consulting on the front end, interpreter and describer coordination in production, and accessibility audits that close the loop after a run ends. It looks like Touch Tours that map the set with a director who can answer questions. It looks like a Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park or an Eugene O’Neill ASL crew embedded into the rehearsal calendar from day one.
Access, built into the show
Across Broadway, regional theatre, and national tours, ACCESS Broadway NY builds access into the production from the table read forward — sign-language interpretation, audio description, Touch Tours, and captioning held to the same standard as the show itself. Same crew network, same commitment to translation that holds the meaning of the source.
The principle the work answers to is older than either practice: Nothing about us, without us.