George Schofield, 79, has trouble hearing, but when he put on a pair of smart glasses during a recent production of Macbeth at Temple University, he says he finally stopped missing what was happening on stage. The glasses streamed real-time captions of the play's dialogue directly into his line of sight, letting him watch the actors and read the script at the same time.
Schofield was the first person to try the new technology, known as WatchWord Live, when it debuted at Temple Theaters this fall, according to CBS Philadelphia. He said he did not have to miss what was happening on stage while using the glasses. Temple's staging of Shakespeare's Macbeth ran from September 24 through October 4, and per Temple University School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, the run marked the global debut of WatchWord Live smart glasses within a university theater department.
The glasses work by sending pre-formatted script lines through Wi-Fi, with an audio feed or operator cues automatically syncing the captions to the actors' live delivery, the CBS Philadelphia report explains. Lisa Sonneborn, who works with Temple University's Institute on Disabilities, said the technology functions similarly to captions on a television. She has spent years working to bring the technology to Temple, and said getting it into the community was exciting.
A Years-Long Push Finally Reaches Campus
The rollout at Temple is the latest chapter in a much longer effort. Temple's Institute on Disabilities received a $225,000 grant from the Barra Foundation's Catalyst Fund back in 2018 to launch a regional pilot bringing smart caption glasses to Philadelphia-area theaters, done in partnership with London's National Theatre and Malvern's People's Light, according to the Barra Foundation. That funding helped introduce augmented-reality captioning to local audiences years before the technology reached Temple's own campus productions this fall.
People's Light became the first U.S. theater to pilot smart caption glasses in 2019, later upgrading to WatchWord Live in February 2025, while Philadelphia's Arden Theatre became the second regional venue to adopt the AI-assisted system in early 2024, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The system was developed by Built For Good, a U.K. technology company, using augmented-reality glasses manufactured by Epson paired with handheld controllers that let users adjust font size, color, brightness, and positioning, according to Arts Professional.
Why Looking Away From the Stage Matters
An eye-tracking study conducted by WatchWord and London's National Theatre found that audience members relying on sign-language interpreters spend roughly half of a performance looking away from the stage, according to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Smart glasses, by contrast, display captions directly in the user's line of sight without obscuring the actors, addressing a long-standing split-attention problem for hard-of-hearing patrons who previously had to choose between watching the performance and reading a caption board.
Temple currently has four pairs of the smart glasses, which it offers for free to people with hearing trouble, and the technology is also used in a couple of other Philadelphia theaters. Judy Schofield, George's wife, said making things accessible for other people is wonderful. The couple said the glasses let them share the theater experience together without George missing what is said on stage.
Part of a Broader National Expansion
Beyond the Philadelphia region, WatchWord Live has expanded to major U.S. performing arts centers, including Costa Mesa, California's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in October 2025 and Tampa's Straz Center for the Performing Arts, per the Segerstrom Center. More than 50 million Americans, roughly 1 in 7 people, experience some degree of hearing loss, including over 65% of adults aged 71 and older, according to data cited by the Hearing Loss Association of America.
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires venues open to the public, including performing arts centers, to provide auxiliary aids and services to ensure effective communication, though federal enforcement has traditionally focused on static caption screens or ASL interpreters rather than personal wearable devices, the Hearing Loss Association of America notes. Accessibility advocates and theater administrators emphasize that smart glasses are meant to complement, not replace, existing accommodations like open captioning, ASL interpreters, and assistive listening loops, since accessibility needs vary widely across deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, according to American Theatre. Hardware costs run around $1,000 per pair, leaving open questions about whether smaller regional theaters can secure the grant funding needed to maintain software licenses and glasses fleets going forward.
