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Lori Ferguson Furth holds the script and her notes for a production of Back to the Future: The Musical outside Denver’s Buell Theatre. As a live audio describer, she uses her notes to ensure audience members who have low sight or are blind have a similar experience to other patrons. Photos by Hannah Howell.

In the darkened Buell Theatre, a scattering of patrons wearing headsets hears a voice describe a flashing screen onstage that reads “Oct. 25, 1985,” and��“radiation source detected.”

The voice through the headsets belongs to Lori Ferguson Furth (Comm’85), who is in an audio booth behind the audience. She’s describing the set, costumes and action of Back to the Future: The Musical for patrons who have low sight or are blind.

A live audio describer, she prepares by “scribbling notes in the dark” at a preview to determine which nonverbal jokes, sight gags or visual details are pivotal for audience members who cannot see them. She also writes a preshow introduction for patrons who wear��
the headsets.

During the performance, she keeps an eye on her notes while calling out the��action as it happens, watching for things she may��not have anticipated.

“You try to fill patrons in on any nonverbal thing that happens that the audience might react to, like a glance or a shrug,” Furth said. “But you would say ‘shrug’—you wouldn’t say ‘he’s bored,’ or however you might interpret it. That’s what the audience gets to do.”

As with most live performances, things don’t always go as planned. At a summer showing of & Juliet, the mic wasn’t working properly and had to be replaced midshow. A few days later, Furth left the printed script at home between performances. She pulled the script up on her phone—without her annotations—and used the show’s program and her memory to write a new introduction on the fly.

“I had some difficulty getting the document to scroll on my phone, so I gave up and just live-described in the moment,” she said. “It was probably among the best performances I ever gave, because it was raw and unrehearsed—and my preparation paid off.”

As more touring productions, like Back to the Future, rely on video and visual elements, describers like Furth provide the additional details needed to ensure patrons who have low sight enjoy an experience similar to other members of the audience.

Live audio description is available for designated weekend showings and on request at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. During the 2024-25 season, 587 patrons and companions reserved tickets for the service.

A simple touch between actors��“can show there’s a change in the relationship, and so you want to make sure you’re including something that might impart a little bit more information than they could hear,” she said.

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“Lori is definitely one of our top��describers,” said Aaron McMullen, Denver Center for Performing Arts’ patron experience manager on duty. “You have to know what is important and when to talk. You don’t want��to interrupt what’s happening in the show or describe something that��isn’t helpful.”

In each stage of Furth’s career—which has taken her to banking and corporate communications, in addition to voice acting—she’s relied on skills learned as a communication major, like speaking in public, working in small groups and communicating concisely.

“Communication is about people and relationships,��and how to make the most of the processes we all use��every day,” she said. “It’s a valuable degree, and I use it��all the time.”

She also continued to seek out workshops, which is how she found Roy Samuelson, an advocate for the blind and low-vision community.

“He does a lot of work in film and television, and I thought that was where I was headed,” Furth said. “And then I heard about live theater, and I thought, ‘I can’t imagine anything more terrifying, there’s no possible way to do that comfortably’—which meant I had to try it.”

She took classes with Samuelson and then Bonnie Barlow, who has described more than 260 plays for DCPA since 1992. When Furth left Los Angeles two years ago to be closer to family in Denver, Barlow connected her to DCPA.

Furth said her continued enthusiasm for her work comes from her flexibility and willingness to pivot—characteristics she also sees in CMDI.

“We need to pay attention to what’s going on and what’s changing, and we need to be able to react to it,” she said. “At CMDI, it’s the same kind of idea—that it’s embracing the cutting-edge stuff that’s happening and saying, we’re ready for the future.”

Malinda Miller graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences with a degree in English in 1992 and Masters in Journalism in 1998.