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Mum Puppettheatre Presents Personal Captioning Systems

For Immediate Release: April 21, 2004

Philadelphia, PA – The works of artists and performers at Mum Puppettheatre are to be shared and experienced by everyone! Thanks to the Theatre Communications Group's Audiences of Tomorrow objective, Mum was able to purchase a Live Theater Captioning System from Illinois-based Personal Captioning Systems, Inc. We invite the deaf and hard-of-hearing, their friends and families to come to our productions and experience the mission of Mum - to encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to use their imaginations through puppetry, mask, mime, acting, music and design.

Individuals with hearing loss are often left out of cultural and social activities because captioning and sign language are rarely available. This community tends to be under-served by the speaking theatre world. Approximately 10% of the general population is deaf or hard-of-hearing, that translates into about 500,000 people in the Greater Philadelphia area alone! The Live Captioning System uses pre-scripted captions that are displayed on a Desktop Display Unit. Using wireless radio transmission, the Desktop Display Unit provides discreet, easy-to-read text captioning anywhere within Mum's theatre.

Mum Puppettheatre is committed to making its performances and facilities accessible to all our patrons. This commitment was specifically cited for its importance to the deaf community in 2002 when Creative Access, the Philadelphia advocacy group for the rights of the deaf and hard-of-hearing, awarded Mum Puppettheatre its "Beyond the Ramp" Award for our continued work with the deaf community. While Mum's productions are traditionally wordless, in 1998 we began cultivating our relationship with the deaf community by providing ASL interpretation for our family holiday show, The Velveteen Rabbit. Over the past five years, patrons have reported that Mum is the first place they have been able to come as a deaf family. Now use of Personal Captioning Systems will make EVERY performance at Mum accessible to everyone.

Captioning is available upon request, so please make a reservation at least 24 hours prior to your performance date. Call 215.925.8686 or visit www.mumpuppet.org for information about upcoming events. If you are an organization interested in renting the Live Captioning System for your venue, please contact (215) 925-8686.

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