WHEEL CHAIR FREINDLY THEATRES - WHERE ARE THEY?

I recently tried to obtain tickets for a certain “festival production” at a popular historical Subiaco theatre and was quite surprised and shocked to discover that they were not able to seat my friends due to the simple fact that they need to use wheelchairs instead of their own legs to get around.

Having worked at the particular venue, I was gob smacked! I knew we had moved much larger equipment than a wheelchair in and out of the building so I made a few personal inquiries of the Management and Staff and discovered that although access “could be possible” because the rear exit is wide enough and on level ground (to allow the bump in and out of road cases on castors) but the venue was not allowed to list itself as “Wheelchair Accessible” because it does not have Disabled Bathroom facilities. (Damned ridiculous expression – who would want to use a toilet that doesn’t work anyway?)

OK – jokes aside, this situation caused me to stretch my memory. As a recently retired Finley adjudicator, I must have visited every ITA Community Theatre in Perth and surrounding areas, not to mention the “Professional” venues in the Perth CBD, Subiaco and Southern Suburbs – and I can only recall one or two (from ­BOTH categories!) that are able to accommodate “wheelies”.

While I think that this is shameful of the Professional venues, I would like to think that as Community based theatres, in it for the love rather than the bucks, we take better care of our patrons.

And so started a quest - To locate and name all the “Wheelchair Accessible” community theatre companies within our City and surrounding suburbs in a list which can then be added to this website as a posting, there to remain as a searchable document that can be included on the FAQ page.  Or better yet – each company could add the information to their profile so that our less-than-able patrons are able to see where they are welcome.

In order to be able to refer to your venue as having “Disabled Access” you must be able to provide not just the correct width entry and exit doors (including Emergency Exits) but also specialized bathroom facilities fitted with Health and Safety approved support hand rails. Ideally this would be a “Unisex” room, as the majority of “helpers” are not necessarily the same gender as those being “helped”, however, I do know of one theatre that has the required facilities in the “LADS” and “LASSIES” rooms (But I am not quite sure how that works if assistance is required)

That raises the question “Which companies fit the bill?”

I am asking ALL theatre companies, particularly those in Western Australia, to add their name and address as either a comment or as a reply below if they are able to offer this service to their patrons and also ask those same companies to include the words “Wheelchair Accessible” on their promotional material for future productions.

 Just for the record, if it all seems too hard, please remember that there is a largely untapped market here for Community Theatre and that for almost every “Wheelie” there is a carer that travels with them…… So each additional seat that you could be selling is probably two.

Also, Grant and the Admin Team, (Sorry guys, I know this means more work!) would it be possible to include a button on the company profiles that indicated that they were able to accommodate our “mobility challenged” patrons?