Alvaro Gutierrez: Hello and welcome to project access for all our guest today is Beth prevor. She is the executive director at HANDS ON in New York and she going to to tell us a lot about that and also a lot about inclusion in society. thank you so much Beth for being with us today.

Beth Prevor: thank you for having me.

Alvaro Gutierrez: my pleasure and we would like to know a little bit more about your wonderful organization HANDS ON and what is their mission?

Beth Prevor: Sure HANDS ON we are a small non-profit art organization. we basically provide and support accessibility for the arts for the deaf and hard of hearing community and we do that thru several services. Our main services is that we produce sign interpreters to performances at theaters we also have a website and we produce a cultural calendar of accessible events for deaf people which include not only our performances but museums and any cultural organizations that accessible to deaf people. we provide a lot of information and referrals that we've collected over the years. We do consultations for theaters and we do workshops and mentoring for new interpreters.

Alvaro Gutierrez: Very interesting and I would like to know how do you pick the interpreters?

Beth Prevor: Well all interpreters generally work freelance meaning that their individuals and nobody really works for any one organization so its a relatively small community of interpreters so we generally know each other in terms of theatrical interpreting in not a huge constituency. there's not that many people who specialize in theater. maybe there’s 15 or 20 interpreters currently in new york that I would call real theatrical interpreters so we generally you know ask around its a lot of friends we’re a very small community so we all know each other really well and its just gonna asking people who are available people who you know might have a special bit with that show.so that generally how we do it

Alvaro Gutierrez: and how do you select the play you will interpret?

Beth Prevor: well we work with several different theaters in New York City. The main theater is Roundabout which is a non-profit Broadway theater and generally with a theater like Roundabout we do all their shows we do every show that their producing we do two performances of every show. sometimes the theater will? called us and ask specifically about we like you to interpret this specific play sometimes it's a play that has a specific focus about deafness and they think that that might be a good fit for the deaf community sometimes it's a theater that just interested in access for deaf people and just wants us to do that show. A lot of times I have to look at a show in a similar way as a producer would look at any show you know can we get an audience for it is there specific kind of inbreed that the show has for the deaf community. cause i have to work hard to help the theater sell the tickets to the deaf community so i think about that when somebodies asking me about a show
Alvaro Gutierrez: have you been in many many theaters?

Beth Prevor: Over the years we've been around for quite awhile so we've been were coming up to our 33 year i think in operation so we work with a wide variety of theaters when you ask me some of the questions you had ask me I look back on some of the theaters that we work with when we first got started we work at a very small theater called Dance theater workshop which was a lot more experimental shows we work with Whoopi Goldberg who's now a big star and when we work with her she was not a big star she was really quite new. so we worked with smaller more experimental theater we worked with Broadway theaters we did the first interpreted performances of lion king on Broadway. we did a production of radio city Christmas spectacular with sixteen interpreters. so we worked with a lot of different theaters over the years which is really wonderful and fun

Alvaro Gutierrez: I'm thinking that could this wonderful motto of Hand On could be applied in other cities and countries?

Beth Prevor:I think absolutely i don't think that what we do- I think what we do is not unique in that i think it's very replicable i don't think- i think that we’re definitely a community based organization and i think we worked a lot with the communities and we act as basically a liaison between the community and the theaters and i think that it's - i mean Hands On is very small i basically run it i work with a lot of outside people in term of interpreter and advisers and people that want to help out but i think that it's definitely something that other people can do

Alvaro Gutierrez: I know Beth your work is very rewarding in itself but what is the most rewarding part?

Beth Prevor: i think knowing that knowing that because of a lot of work that we do the deaf community has access to the wonderful performances and theater opportunities in the city like i said before were definitely a community organization and knowing the people in the community- the deaf community its a small community and you know people, people know me, I know people so when we do a interpreted performance and i go to the theater you know people hug me people kiss me i know everybody. People ask about how you're doing i know them they know me it's a very communal kind of event and when you go to the performance there's before the show even starts you see people seeing their friends talking it's just a wonderful friendly comfortable environment and i think that the fact that we are part of that is what i really enjoy the most

Alvaro Gutierrez: now your organization is providing access to the deaf but we wonder how can others encourage other organizations like yours to get access to the arts for the deaf community and our communities of people with disability how can we help in that regard?

Beth Prevor: I think it's very important to look at any audience with disabilities as- a lot of organization I'm going to backtrack a little I'm sorry a lot of organizations are now doing audience development programs and are very interested in audience engagement and how we can attract new audiences and this whole idea of diversity and bringing in audiences of color Latino audiences is very important to a lot of theaters but i think what happened over the years is that audiences with disability have been put into a category of providing a service and that's all theater and organization need to do. I think that they think people with disabilities are not a constituency, are not look at as other diverse groups are looked at i think that we need to start considering audiences with disabilities, their culture, their special needs, their interest, their barriers kinda as a holistic and total entity rather than thinking that if we provide a service we’re finished with that responsibility. so i think that if we to encourage the inclusion you have to look at the communities that your look to include and you really need to understand the communities more and that's what i hope.

Alvaro Gutierrez: How do you think the ADA has improved the lives of the people with disabilities in general

Beth Prevor: I think its brought kinda to the forefront. I mean think that people more people know about the ADA then you know passed laws and i think that people are more aware. I think that there’s still alot of work that needs to be done you know in terms of access and again I think that we need to better understand the communities along with the laws i mean i think the laws are necessary and important and very vital to this whole idea of inclusion but i think we need to kinda take the law and couple the law with understanding the people as well and i think that will kind of add a difference take to how people will look at inclusion

Alvaro Gutierrez: How can people try and come to current plays that you have in your website that your interpreting all across the city

Beth Prevor: Well we have a lovely and very active website its H.A.N.D.S.O.N.ORG, that not only list the shows that we’re interpreting but as i said we have a cultural calendar which is very full and vital and and changes daily. I do the calendars so i make sure that it's very much up to date. we have a lot of resource information that's on the website. so yeah so we're and we actually have some videos on the website for deaf people are attuned to visuals so we have a lot of video tapes on the website.we have an active we have a Facebook page. we on twitter. we have social media people who keep that stuff up to date

Alvaro Gutierrez: Before i let you go Beth I always want to know what’s something that in your mind that you will have our listener hear from you before you go. something that's gonna summarize what you are doing maybe what this wonderful lady at 25 to be what you want hands on to accomplish in future anything as final thoughts that you may have.

Beth Prevor: there’s probably so many things i mean i think as we approach this 25th anniversary.I think its just giving people reason to think about people with disabilities as our neighbor and as our friends as our loved ones. that we’re all in this together. this whole idea of anyone at anytime can become disable. its just very important that as humanity and as a society that we all kinda acknowledge that difference is good i thinks it will be a terrible society if we were all the same and I'm a person with a disability and i love my disability and its makes me who i am and i think if people can recognize and respect each other for who we are then the world will be a better place

Alvaro Gutierrez: So Beth can you give us a email a phone number to connect with you.

Beth Prevor: probably the best way to connect is through email and that info. HANDSON.ORG.

Alvaro Gutierrez: and on Facebook we can find you on HANDS ON?

Beth Prevor: HANDS ON SIGN INTERPRETED PERFORMANCES

Alvaro Gutierrez: Well Beth thank you so much for you time you expertise and you passion and what you’re doing and helping you community we going to be very excited to have these interviews also with the people who deaf can read it. It has to be accessible to all if not there’s no purpose to do anything as you were mentioning before its all about inclusion so Beth thank you so much and we look forward to talking to you in the future and also for our listeners we’re also on social media so you can like us on Facebook @ProjectAccessForAll you can follow us on twitter @ProjectAccessForAll you can go on our website www.ProjectAccessForAll.org and if want to be on this show you can email us at podcast@ProjectAccessForAll.org so from Alvaro and ABS and ProjectAccessFor All have a wonderful day and go see some of those play of HANDS ON