Making Fringe Theatre Accessible: How SlideTeller Opens the Stage to Everyone

S1E2 of What the Fringe?!

In theatre and storytelling, visuals often carry as much meaning as the spoken word. Slides, images, and on-screen moments can add humor, deepen emotional context, or shape the audience’s understanding. But for audience members who are blind and visually impaired, those moments are frequently inaccessible. A new tool called SlideTeller is working to change that.

What is SlideTeller?

SlideTeller is an audio description app designed for live theatre. It allows blind and visually impaired attendees to hear descriptions of visual content—such as slides—through headphones, in real time, while the performance is happening. Rather than altering the structure of a show, it quietly adds a descriptive layer, making the full experience available to more people.

Miyo Yamauchi, also known as Miyo the Storyteller. Co-creator of SlideTeller.

The idea began when solo performer Miyo Yamauchi wanted to make her show more accessible after a friend who is blind attended one of her performances. While the friend could follow the spoken story, he missed the humor and context in the slide visuals. She considered traditional solutions like Braille, but they were not financially feasible. She turned to her creative partner, software developer Anthony Phills, and together they created an AI-generated playbill in 2022.

That playbill was a helpful start, but after a second visit, the friend offered feedback that led to something new: because he couldn’t see the slides, he couldn’t tell what had changed from one version of the show to another. This sparked the idea for SlideTeller—an app that could describe those visuals in real time, allowing all audience members to access the same story beats and shared reactions.

The Future of Fringe Accessibility

SlideTeller in action during "How To Be Japanese: Your Normal Is Not My Normal"

The team debuted the prototype at the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2023, where they invited VocalEye, a Canadian live translation service, to test the tool and provide feedback. The response helped guide ongoing refinements. SlideTeller is still in development, but it is already gaining attention from festivals and performance groups committed to expanding access.

SlideTeller’s creators hope that performers, theatre producers, fringe festivals, and arts organizations will explore its use in future shows. More information is available at SlideTeller.com.

Accessibility in theatre is not just a matter of compliance—it is a commitment to inclusion. Tools like SlideTeller help ensure that the full experience of a performance is available to all, regardless of how someone receives it.

Listen to the full interview with Miyo:

This blog post was inspired by S1 E2 of the What the Fringe?! podcast, and was written utilizing AI technology, in conjunction with human oversight and editing.