Arizona Theatre Matters: Global Reach, Accessible Art, and Marginalized Artist Support

Binta Mohammed and Rachel Temitope.

Know a Theatre

September 10, 2026 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment

Know a Theatre: Arizona Theatre Matters

Working from a foundation of accessibility, this organization is beaming their art around the world, and supporting marginalized artists in the process.

By American Theatre Editors

Early on in the pandemic, theatres around the country and world hastened to pivot, venturing uncertainly into new online virtual options to share art with patrons. Arizona Theatre Matters was among the companies that expanded its online presence. Now, as ATM points out on its website, “What began as a practical response became a global platform for performance, education, and artistic inquiry.” Indeed, despite the locale that the name suggests, finding the work of Arizona Theatre Matters doesn’t require a flight or hotel. Even local Arizonans don’t even need to gas up their cars. Finding their offerings can be as simple as opening YouTube .

American Theatre recently emailed with founding artistic director Jeanmarie Simpson to find out more about ATM’s unique approach to sharing their work and how accessibility forms the bedrock for all they do.

AMERICAN THEATRE: Who founded Arizona Theatre Matters, when, and why?

JEANMARIE SIMPSON: I founded ATM in 2012. I came to the term Universal Design embarrassingly late. I helmed the Nevada Shakespeare Company throughout its existence, and when we opened a show at the new Nevada Museum of Art , a “state of the art” building, I was gobsmacked by the pandering, virtue-signaling “accessibility.” Yes, there was Braille at the elevators, but why wasn’t it next to the English interpretation? And when they opened the world-touring Frida Kahlo exhibit, why the hell wasn’t it in Spanish? This was 2003, not 1957.

So I wanted to move forward as a universally accessible theatre. I soon discovered how difficult that was, and how expensive and unpopular with “mainstream” audiences. This was the 21st century, but I had a hard time getting my board to even wrap their heads around having mixed casts. When I cast an Asian actor as Demetrius, I thought I was going to be fired. Directors scoffed and turned down work because they thought the notion of universal access didn’t apply to theatre.

I left Nevada in 2007, and five years later I was back in my native state and founded Arizona Theatre Matters, then called Universal Access Productions. I was in Tucson, and continually amazed and horrified by the lack of accessibility—even just basics, like elevators and doorways wide enough for wheelchairs. “Handicapped” audiences were segregated, not to mention the egregious lack of accessibility for actors with disabilities.

I started the company with the plan to produce live theatre with and for people with disabilities, but I quickly learned that the theatre—even crazy-expensive institutional spaces—was simply not made for us.

Tell us a little more about yourself and your background.

I was born in Ray, Arizona, a mining town that no longer exists, and grew up partly in Kearny, which was built to house people displaced by the mine. So I think I understood early that whole communities can be erased, renamed, moved, or treated as inconvenient. That has a way of staying with a person.

My family moved to Toronto when I was 10, and that changed everything. I discovered theatre there—really discovered it—and also found myself in the middle of political upheaval, anti-war feeling, and a much larger world than the one I had known in rural Arizona. I started making original work when I was 12, and directing at 15.

I have worked as an actor, director, playwright, producer, and teacher. I co-founded and helmed the Nevada Shakespeare Company, toured original work nationally and internationally, and created plays rooted in history, peace work, feminism, and women whose lives still have something urgent to say. A Single Woman , about Jeannette Rankin , was performed thousands of times in the U.S. and 53 other countries, often to benefit peace and justice organizations.

My work has always moved between theatre and activism. I became a peace activist in the 1980s, and after Sept. 11, 2001, that commitment became even more central to the work.

What sets your theatre apart from others in your region?

ATM builds access into the artistic work from the first idea. Blind voice actors, Deaf Artistic Sign Language performers, captioning, audio description, sensory-aware design, and digital distribution shape the work itself. They are part of the language of the production. Our theatre now reaches people in 194 countries, with captions in more than 300 languages. We have more than 120,000 subscribers and over 2.5 million views since the advent of the pandemic. I cannot imagine we would have had anywhere near a third of those numbers if we had stayed a live theatre. That matters. A theatre does not have to be confined to the people who can get into a particular building on a particular night. Arizona has many wonderful theatres. ATM occupies a particular place among them.

Tell us about your favorite theatre institution other than your own, and why you admire it.

I think it’s probably Deaf West . I admire the company because the work itself makes the argument. Deafness is not treated as an obstacle to be solved, or as a subject for someone else’s compassion. It is the matter from which the art is sculpted. The work is larger and more interesting because we hear the language and see it at the same time. The bilingualism is that of which the work is made.

That matters to me. Deaf West has shown, again and again, that when Deaf artists, sign language, visual language, silence, and movement are central to the making of the work, the work becomes more precise, more alive, and more true.

Further Reading

Returning to Your Magic Tree House

_Originally reported by [American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/09/10/know-a-theatre-arizona-theatre-matters/)._