Blind director in Oregon wants theatre performances to be accessible to all

From The Observer LaGrande, Oregon:

Television and cinema are theater for the eye. Live theater is for the ear, according to Hal Long, director, writer and Joseph resident. (He is pictured in the right corner of the photo at an audition.)

As long as the story is told correctly, the audience doesn’t have to see a lot, he says.

Long calls this “Theater of the Imagination.’’ Designed for the sight-impaired, it features key sound effects and emphasizes music and narration that sight-impaired members of the audience can perceive and appreciate. This type of dramatic performance can be presented without distracting sighted viewers.

Long began adapting plays for the blind in 1998 when he lost his sight due to complications associated with diabetes. He attended the American Lake Blind Rehabilitation Center for veterans in Washington 10 years ago. There, he said, he learned not to be fearful. He learned about sound location; how to measure distances or the size of a room by listening to how the voice bounces off walls.

He can hear 10 voices at once and sort and identify each one. His background in engineering and building construction are also assets.

“I stood under the traffic lights until I heard the light click to green. Now I have ‘sound lights,’” he says. “Everyone could learn what I learned. It is an intensive training, 24/7, anywhere from three to eight or nine months, sometimes more.”

Long is a classically trained actor who attended the Actors’ Studio in New York City but found that acting is not the occupation he was best suited for.

He has written seven plays, several screenplays and adaptations and has directed hundreds of productions. Long and two partners started the community theater group Lumiere Players in 1983 in Newberg. The group moved to Tualatin where it continues to perform at the Tualatin Heritage Center.

Long said he is the only blind director on the West Coast. He didn’t sell any of his writing until he was blind for a year.

“I am not distracted by visual stimuli, not fooled by any visual aspect. The only sense I don’t have is sight, and I have highly developed other senses that everyone possesses,” he says.

One of his most successful plays is “North Platte Canteen,” produced in 2007. It is a story of the 6 million men and women who served in the military in World War II and passed through the town of North Platte, Neb., on their way across the country.

He worked on the movie “Fail Safe” in 2000, adapted the radio drama “War of the Worlds” to the stage, and one of his most recent projects is writing a stage play for the John Grisham novel, “Skipping Christmas.” According to Long, Grisham has said the story was always meant to be a play.

Long moved to the quiet setting of his cabin in Wallowa County to work on this project and says it will be finished this year and probably in production by 2011.

Long likes to rehearse a show he is directing for 12 weeks. It gives him time to bond with the cast and allows them to become an extended family. He says he has always been able to gain the confidence of the cast.

Each play he directs is a series of thousands of still photographs he sees in his imagination. He shifts and arranges them in his mind and translates those images to the blocking of the play. He describes a cast of characters as an orchestra where he can hear each part and each voice like separate musical instruments.

“I always have at least one sighted assistant to make sure my wishes are followed,’’ he says. “The heart of the play is creating the characters. I work with each individual to be comfortable with the part and then bring the cast to the set to work together.”

With the help of his wife, Lynn, and his computer scanner, Long continues to read novels and plays to adapt to his Theater of the Imagination. He recently made contact with the new owners of the historic OK Theatre in Enterprise and it reminded him of a movie called “The Majestic” about the revitalization of an old movie theater in a small Midwest town.

He says he is always trying out ideas and casting people he knows in the parts in his mind. It is especially exciting to come up with a story that expresses something significant for a community, and he is particularly interested in history.

Long feels his blindness gives him increased focus and is “a tremendous asset” to his work. He obtained another measure of confidence when he received his guide dog, Floyd.

“I was good with my cane, but there were places I couldn’t go. It is hard to give over your trust to a dog, but he knows more than I do. I have a code word I say to him to get me out the door we came in,” Long says.

Floyd was trained by Guide Dogs for the Blind based in San Raphael, Calif., and Boring. Guide dogs at this facility not only learn to lead a person safely from one point to the next, but also are trained in “intelligence disobedience.” If the dog is given a command that would result in an unsafe situation, it is taught to not obey the command.

Guide dogs are taught to have perfect manners compatible in restaurants, public transportation or grocery stores. They must be capable of avoiding distractions like cats, toys, food and other dogs.

These specially-bred dogs are trained in quiet residential streets, busy downtown areas with heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic, in San Francisco and Portland, as well as wooded rural locations. They learn to navigate elevators, escalators, stairs, curbs and street crossings.

Long and Floyd have given presentations of their unique training to civic groups and youth organizations in Wallowa County. One of the 4-H clubs is now interested in raising puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind. Volunteers receive the pups at 6 to
8 weeks old and return them to the school when they are about 18 months old.

Oregon is one of only eight states in the nation allowed to raise dogs for guide dog training. The dogs are usually trained for six months before they are connected with a blind person.

Raising the puppies is a total family commitment, Long says. There are strict guidelines and weekly evaluations to go over the protocols for correctly socializing the dogs, which must be kept close to the “master” at all times.

Long said he is happy to have helped a local youth activity group become involved in such a worthwhile endeavor.