In Temple University’s production of Alice by Heart, a young girl escapes the horrors of World War II through the imaginative world of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, using captioning glasses, theatergoers who are deaf or hard of hearing can follow the dialogue and lyrics without taking their eyes off the stage.

The Philadelphia university has introduced WatchWord Live, a captioning system that displays dialogue directly in a theatergoer’s field of vision. The technology allows audience members to follow performances from virtually any seat, removing some of the barriers that have limited access to live theater.

The glasses debuted during Temple’s September production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, following years of collaboration between the university’s Institute on Disabilities and its theater program.

For people with hearing loss, attending a play can require planning around accessibility accommodations. Some theaters offer captioned performances only on designated dates, while others display dialogue on screens beside or above the stage, forcing patrons to shift their attention between the words and the actors.

WatchWord Live provides an alternative. Developed by Built For Good, a British company specializing in accessibility for live entertainment, the system transmits captions wirelessly to the glasses. The words appear within the wearer’s field of vision, allowing theatergoers to read along without looking away from the performance.

Users can adjust the text’s size, color, brightness and position. During Temple’s initial rollout, an operator followed the actors’ dialogue and cued captions from a prepared script. WatchWord Live also supports automatic synchronization, using audio from the stage to match dialogue with prepared captions.

“People use captions very differently,” said Tabitha Allum, co-founder and chief operating officer of Built For Good, in Temple’s announcement of the initiative. “Some people are using it to follow every single word, and other people are just using it to check words that they’re not sure that they heard correctly.”

Temple has four pairs of glasses available for theatergoers, who can request them for Temple Theaters and Temple Opera productions. The service makes captioning available throughout a production’s run rather than restricting it to specially scheduled performances.

The initiative grew out of accessibility research that Temple’s Institute on Disabilities began more than a decade ago. In 2018, the institute received a $225,000 grant from the Barra Foundation’s Catalyst Fund to explore captioning technology for Philadelphia-area theaters.

The effort eventually expanded beyond campus, with the glasses becoming available at regional venues, including People’s Light and the Arden Theatre Company.

For Lisa A. Sonneborn, director of media arts and culture programs at Temple’s Institute on Disabilities, the objective extends beyond the technology itself.

“I want deaf and hard-of-hearing audience members to forget the technology and enjoy being part of the art-loving community,” Sonneborn said in the university’s announcement. “I want them to engage in the conversations that art inspires. I want them to feel connected.”

Temple’s initiative reflects a broader effort to use emerging technology to improve accessibility in education, entertainment and other public settings.

At George Mason University in Virginia, educators have highlighted the growing role of AI in assistive technologies, including text-to-speech systems, communication devices and smart glasses that help people with visual impairments interpret their surroundings.

Anya Evmenova, a professor of special education and assistive technology at George Mason, has highlighted how AI-powered tools can provide students with more personalized ways to access information and communicate.

Assistive technology is also changing how people with disabilities experience professional sports.

OneCourt, a technology company developing accessibility tools for sports fans, has created a portable device that allows people who are blind or have low vision to follow live games through their fingertips.

The tablet-sized device uses vibrations to help fans feel the movement of the ball and follow the action as a game unfolds. A basketball fan, for example, can feel the ball move up the court and experience key moments as they happen. Audio cues provide additional information.

OneCourt reports that its technology has been offered by more than 16 professional teams across major sports leagues, supporting more than 500 games, including basketball, baseball, football and soccer.

While the technologies serve different needs, they share a common purpose: making experiences that many people take for granted more accessible. Whether following dialogue onstage or tracking the action at a sporting event, people with disabilities are gaining new ways to participate in live entertainment.