My Story

My relationship with Treloar's

Theatre is notoriously bad for access, so in making this happen for Treloar's, we proved that sometimes, you just need to think out of the box....

When showing prospective clients around the venue I work at, I have always prided ourselves on being an incredibly accessible building, with level access to the street from 2 floors, a front of house passenger lift, 24x wheelchair removable seats in the auditorium, an amazing Creative Learning team who provide bounds of knowledge regarding access, venue social stories, close by access parking, access to the stage via 2x BOH platform lifts, access to our control room via a platform lift, and access to the BOH offices! We really do say that you can get anywhere in our building. Which was always the case until….

Treloar School provides education, care, therapy, medical support and independence training to young people with physical disabilities. Treloar school had enquired with Dance Live regarding participation in 2024’s Guildford heats. The application was filled in, but since then, we discovered Treloar were sceptical and unconvinced they would be able to take part. Dance Live put me in touch with Treloar, and I did the usual spiel regarding access, and how many access loos we had, and how we had lifts to the stage. It wasn’t until they asked for my tape measure that I realised we sometimes we tick boxes, rather than being truly accessible.

Toilets- how high were they off the floor? How close was the sink built to the bowl? How much room between the wall and the access rail? Where was the toilet roll positioned? I didn’t know there was so many obstacles to having a wee! And that was in our access loos! While some of their students would be able to use these, our first barrier was that many of them wouldn’t. Head of School, Lisa Bond, without a beat declared ‘mobiloos’, and immediately checked the availability of their school’s mobile toilet van. First problem solved.

Using my initiative, I had blocked out the biggest dressing room for the day. Perfect- they’ll be appreciative that- I’ve thought ahead! What I hadn’t thought about were door thresholds, width of door frames, angles required to navigate a wheelchair into the corridor or fridges in the space for medicines! More barriers. We were finding that for every barrier that was easily fixable i.e a fridge in the space, there was another that was bound by the building’s infrastructure. We persevered and we identified alternative routes that would get these students backstage.

The final barrier (it was not the final barrier)- the platform lift that would get 20 wheelchair users to the stage. Tape measures at the ready we meticulously measured and remeasured the space in that lift, with some compromise to be made by the students- some would have to ride solo, and some would have to take their foot rests off of their chairs. Great- we managed to map out who would need what accommodations. You could see their faces light up on behalf of the students that this was now in touching distance.

I sheepishly addressed the length of time it would take to evacuate the students one by one in an emergency. 19 and a half minutes. A solution to half that time, I thought- we’d use the lift on the mirroring side, and out at Stage Door! Wrong. Why would the platform lifts be built with the same dimensions and weightloading?!? Too easy! We evaluated which students would then fit in this slightly smaller lift, and timed the evacuation to be around 9 and a half minutes. This would be in a perfect world scenario of seamless cycles of the lift, the rest of the participants backstage evacuating quickly, and all while not getting in eachothers ways. I asked them to leave it with me, and I would discuss with my colleagues to see how we could make this happen for them.

After some brainstorming, we identified that G Live had one lift we hadn’t thought about. The orchestra pit! After some very careful checking for weightloading and how this would tie in with our venue evacuation plan, we deemed it plausible to evacuate all 20 wheelchair users and their staff all at once with a modified plan that was shared with all staff prior to the event. When I rang Treloar’s to share the good news, they were hesitant to get excited, and requested another visit with their largest-chair user, Chloe. We walked through all of the barriers we had found workarounds for, and were able to show them the pit and how this would work in an evacuation.

You could see that it hit them, that we had made their impossible, possible. So many barriers in their daily lives to overcome, but performing on stage in a theatre had felt like a pipedream for far too long. The Head of School teared up as we asked Chloe whether we were going ahead or not. She very excitedly confirmed that this was happening!

Treloar’s School created a piece called ‘What Makes You Tick?’ It told the captivating story of George Swindlehurst MBE, a WW2 survivor whose resilience and love for sport helped shaped British paralympic history. Through the eyes of the Treloar’s students, we saw the enduring power of determination and strength of community support. An authentic portrayal of triumph over adversity, highlighting the extraordinary spirit of human resilience.

The day arrived and 20 very excited students arrived at G Live for their stage debut, with 20 equally excited teachers in tow! Electricity filled the air during their performance, and left the audience profoundly moved. Raptuous applause, a standing ovation, and many many tears filled the auditorium.

Let's continue to strive for inclusivity and accessibility in all our endeavors.