Editing for Access

Practices and Reflections

Authors

  • Amorena Bartlett Deaf consultant and ASL coach
  • Kelsie Acton Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
  • Graham Percy University of Calgary
  • Pil Hansen University of Calgary

Abstract

This article describes the approach to editing for access that was developed for the “Dramaturgies of Accessibility” issue of Performance Matters from 2024 to 2025. This approach was designed to be sustainable for independent publishers and strengthen a diverse community of knowledge. Sustainability is achieved by making resource-based choices about the forms of access provided and by distributing access work within a community while enabling each contributor to match their efforts to their capacity. This article shares examples of access guidelines for authors, kind peer review guidelines, and the practical steps of creating access materials. The authors transparently describe, and reflect on, their experiences editing for access to inspire other publishers and editors.

Author Biographies

Amorena Bartlett, Deaf consultant and ASL coach

Amorena Bartlett currently works at a law firm as a collections paralegal. She graduated in 2017 from MacEwan University with a degree in sociology with a criminology specialization. Learning is a lifelong passion of hers, and she got her paralegal diploma with distinction in 2022. Her first foray into the arts community was as a Deaf consultant for the bilingual production of Songs My Mother Never Sung me (Concrete Theatre, 2018). She has worked with multiple companies and artists in different capacities as a Deaf consultant and ASL coach.

Kelsie Acton, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Kelsie Acton is a post-doctoral researcher with the Centre for Performance, Technology, and Equity at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where she is researching performance for people with sensory sensitivity. She is the author of the plain language versions of Alice Wong’s Disability Intimacy and Year of the Tiger. She calls London (UK) home, but comes from the endless, frozen blue skies of Treaty Six territory.

Graham Percy, University of Calgary

Graham Percy is a theatre actor and educator with over thirty years of professional experience. A graduate of Queen’s University and Jacques Lecoq’s International School of Theatre, he has performed across Canada with Neptune, Watermark, TNB, CanStage, RMTC, Persephone, Theatre Calgary, ATP, Vertigo, Citadel, Arts Club, and many others. In particular, his career featured long working collaborations with Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, Two Planks and Passion Theatre, and Vertigo Mystery Theatre. He is currently pursuing a master of fine arts at the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts. 

Pil Hansen, University of Calgary

Pil Hansen, PhD, is a professor in the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary in Canada. She edits the Routledge book series Expanded Dramaturgy and serves as a dance and devising dramaturg. Drawing on her interdisciplinary research in dramaturgy and performing arts psychology, Pil develops strengths-based approaches to accessibility and age-inclusivity in the arts. She also dramaturged more than forty stage works, authored the monograph Performance Generating Systems in Dance (2022), and edited the books Performing the Remembered Present (2017) and Dance Dramaturgy (2015). Pil is Danish Canadian and lives with physical disability.

In greyscale, we see performer Connor Yuzwenko-Martin's (Deaf) profile from the waist up. His hands are signing through falling grain and his head is bent with closed eyes. The image has stark contrasts of white and black. Slim outlines of Connor’s arms and face catch light that otherwise seems reserved for the falling grain.

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Published

2025-12-19

How to Cite

Bartlett, Amorena, Kelsie Acton, Graham Percy, and Pil Hansen. 2025. “Editing for Access: Practices and Reflections”. Performance Matters 11 (1–2). Vancouver:18–29. https://www.performancematters-thejournal.com/index.php/pm/article/view/553.

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1–2 (2025): Dramaturgies of Accessibility

Section

Introduction

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Amorena Bartlett, Kelsie Acton, Graham Percy, Pil Hansen

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Manuscripts submitted to Performance Matters should be original works that have not been published elsewhere. Note that authors are responsible for obtaining permission to include copyrighted material in any article or review published in Performance Matters.