Purple Pointers - Activating Accessibility with Community-Vetted Tips & Tricks
Join VOX as they share field-tested accessibility solutions for theaters, museums, and public spaces. We'll unpack our literal "access bag" of low-cost tools and demonstrate inclusive communication practices. Learn about our Purple Pointers: attainable and sustainable strategies vetted by our network and community of emerging and experienced Deaf, Blind, disabled and neurodivergent creatives and consultants. We're here to answer your questions.
Session Presenters
ID: karen Krolak, a pale pink, mid century woman with a welcoming smile, lively brown eyes, and a rambunctious river of long gray hair beams at the camera with her head tilted. She is enveloped in layers of hand knits.
karen Krolak is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Monkeyhouse, an award-winning nonprofit founded in 2000 as a laboratory where choreographers could create, experiment and present new work. Monkeyhouse has mentored, nurtured and supported local, national, and international choreographers ranging from students first experimenting to established favorites. Through NEFA’s Center Stage program, they partnered with Arts at the Armory, Endicott College, Impulse Dance Center, the Pingree School and the Center for Arabic Culture. They launched the Covid Collaborations in 2020 supporting over 115 artists organizations in the NE dance ecosystem. Their projects have toured nationally and around New England. karen has invisible disabilities that shape her own creative practices. She knows that a holistic approach to dance and adjustments to schedule, movement and practical accommodations make art possible, powerful and full of the artist’s passion.
ID: Sam Gould, an Ashkenazi Jewish woman with salt and pepper hair wears a rainbow multilayered circle necklace and a purple VOX shirt, smiling.
Sam Gould, Esq is Co-Founder of Think Outside the Vox, a non-profit promoting Disability Justice through increasing creative and consulting opportunities and training BIPOC, Deaf, DeafBlind, and disabled artists to provide accessibility services in the arts. Sam is also the volunteer President/Executive Producer of Open Door Theater where she has been for 25 years. Open Door Theater is a Disability Joy space of true inclusion on both sides of the curtain, including ASL interpretation, workshops and advocacy, open captioning at all performances, audio description and tactile tours, creating sensory friendly/relaxed offerings and safe spaces, and education opportunities for cast and crew. ODT was awarded the Most Accessible Cultural Org in MA by the MA Cultural Council in 2019. Sam received a Community Leadership Award by the United Way (2023), a lifetime achievement award from Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters (2020) and by the Federation of Children (2017).
ID: Olivia Reinebach, a Hard of Hearing mixed Latinx with dark brown curly hair and olive skin wears a purple Vox shirt and cranberry lipstick, smiling.
Olivia Reinebach is thriving in PR and arts accessibility administration in theater, dance, museum, education and cultural spaces. They have presented on and implemented accessible marketing and digital strategies for A.R.T./New York, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Berklee College of Music ABLE Assembly, Mosaic Lowell Arts, and NYU Steinhardt. Via has six years of experience in creative and technical roles in the arts including captioning (The Theater Offensive, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, CHUANG Stage, All My Relations Collective) Audio Description (Guerilla Opera/Urban Jazz Dance Company, The Huntington, American Repertory Theater), Accessibility Coordination and Consultation (The Boston Public Art Triennial, Mass MoCA), and ASL Dramaturgy (Boott Cotton Mills Museum, Juilliard Theater). Olivia’s main occupation is Marketing & Communications Manager with Think Outside the Vox, an arts accessibility nonprofit that elevates Deaf, Blind and disabled professionals and patrons through accessibility education, consultation and job opportunities. On weekends, she presents music shows at the Museum of Science Planetarium. They earned their Bachelor’s of Science in Public Relations and Bachelor’s of Arts in Linguistics at Boston University.