Last week, on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Het Nationale Theater announced a technological innovation for the performing arts: smart glasses that convert live spoken text from actors into real-time subtitles in 223 languages. For everyone who would like to go to the theater, but speaks no or limited Dutch, is deaf or hard of hearing, performances have become more accessible thanks to the new AI-driven technology. Het Nationale Theater came up with the concept for this innovation, called LiveText , and will offer the service free of charge in its theaters and on tour in the fall. LiveText will be officially introduced at the Holland Festival at the end of June .
Renewed concept of smart glasses
At the moment, smart glasses and surtitles for theatres are sporadically available. This is partly due to the labour-intensive approach of pre-entering scripts. With the innovation drive of LiveText , 223 languages are available at any desired time, including languages with a different reading direction, characters and letters. This serves both non-Dutch speakers and 1.5 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the Netherlands at theatre performances. Although developed for theatre, the technology can be applied more broadly, for example at multilingual conferences or international live events. The concept for the glasses was devised by Het Nationale Theater, developed with partner XRAIbased on Dante technology.
How the technology works
Unique to the application is that the subtitles are based on the actors’ voices and not on a pre-entered script. The sound (speech or singing) is transmitted via the microphone of each individual actor via the audio table to the software. This software converts the spoken words into text in real time, translated or not, and sends the subtitles directly to the smart glasses in the room. Visitors see the text at the same distance as where they see the actors standing, which contributes to a calm viewing experience. Different colours make it clear who is speaking.
Cees Debets, director of Het Nationale Theater: “We are proud of the world premiere of this innovative service for non-Dutch speakers, deaf and hard of hearing. Het Nationale Theater is taking a new step in making theater accessible to everyone. We are working hard to share knowledge about this innovation with other theaters and producers. The more often we use this as a sector, the more people in the Netherlands and worldwide can enjoy theater without barriers.”
Forerunner in accessibility
The National Theatre has been actively working on making theatre accessible to people with disabilities for years. This project is an addition to the existing services. The innovation was developed with the support of Cultuurloket DigitALL. In the autumn, the National Theatre will start making the glasses available to the public in The Hague and on tour for free. Until then, the glasses will be extensively tested and further developed in collaboration with the target groups.
About the National Theatre
Het Nationale Theater is the largest traveling theater company in the Netherlands, with productions that travel to more than 40 cities throughout the country. With two companies (Het Nationale Theater and HNTjong), Het Nationale Theater is the only national theater organization that makes performances for all ages. Het Nationale Theater has a home in three theaters in The Hague: the Koninklijke Schouwburg, Theater aan het Spui and Zaal 3. Het Nationale Theater wants to be accessible to everyone. With HNTonbeperkt we do everything we can to remove obstacles for people with disabilities.