Agenda

8:30-9:20 am
Registration and Networking

9:20-9:55 am
Welcome and Keynote
Teal Sherer, Actor, Writer, Advocate
Starting Somewhere: Lived Experience as a Path to Accessibility
In this keynote, Teal Sherer draws on her personal journey as a disabled actor and advocate to show how accessibility can be embedded into the fabric of organizations. From reconfiguring performance spaces to ensuring inclusive audience experiences, she will share candid stories of challenges, missteps, and successes—emphasizing that creating inclusive environments doesn’t require perfection, just action. Teal will set the stage and ground us all into visualizing a future where inclusion is the default, not the exception

10:00-10:55 am
Building Bridges: Securing Buy-In for Accessibility in Arts Organizations
Panelists:
Jessica Lotz, Community Impact & Programs Coordinator, Friends of Waterfront Park
Patrick McMahon, Senior Manager, Visitor Experience and Engagement, Gates Foundation Discovery Center
Marlee Squires, Accessibility Coordinator, The 5th Avenue Theatre
In this panel, leaders from arts organizations will share their journeys toward securing buy-in for accessibility, offering valuable insights on how to align teams and stakeholders around shared accessibility goals. The conversation will explore the challenges and triumphs in cultivating a culture of inclusion, from initial resistance to moments of breakthrough. Panelists will discuss real-world strategies that led to greater organizational commitment, the role of key players in driving change, and the crucial turning points that signaled progress. Through personal stories and examples, this session will provide actionable takeaways on how to foster organizational buy-in for accessibility, making it an integrated, long-term priority.

11:00am-11:55 am
Moving Beyond Compliance: From ADA to Inclusion
Keith Clark, Accessibility Marketing Manager, T-Mobile
This session explores how arts and cultural organizations can move beyond meeting minimum ADA requirements to fostering true and genuine inclusion for everyone. Accessibility expert Keith Clark, Accessibility Marketing Manager at T-Mobile, will share real-world examples, easy-to-implement actions, and valuable resources to help you create welcoming spaces before, during, and after your programs and events. You’ll walk away with practical strategies for embedding inclusion into your organization’s culture, whether you’re just beginning to engage with accessibility or already deep in the work. Inclusion is more than compliance—let’s build a culture of belonging together!

12:00-1:00 pm
Lunch

1:00-1:30 pm
Disabled List Comedy Show
Kayla Brown, Comedian
Dan Hurwitz, Comedian
The Disabled List is a collective of disabled comedians that has been performing in and around Seattle since 2018. Comedians Dan Hurwitz and Kayla Brown believe in the ability of comedy to build community and promote greater understanding into the lives of disabled people. Audiences should expect to hear stories, anecdotes, and wry observations that illuminate both the absurdity and ordinariness of everyday disabled life.

1:30-1:55 pm
An Equity Approach to Uplifting Disabled Voices
Grace Flott, Artist
After Seattle-based visual artist Grace Flott experienced an injury from a fire, she became interested in representation of bodies from a feminist disability justice lens. She wanted to understand more deeply what it meant to exist in a world with a visible difference and how that contrasts with society's socially constructed views of normalcy. Flott will share her experience accessing art and how she approached relationship-building with other disabled individuals to be represented in her art.

2:00-3:00 pm
UnConference Discussions
The unconference sessions provide an opportunity for the community to connect on a deeper level with presenters by sharing ideas, asking questions, and discussing challenges. We will all work together to develop action steps to implement at our own organizations. 

3:00-3:50 pm
Reimagining a Relational Future: There Is No Me Without We
Matt EchoHawk-Hayashi, Co-Founder and Principal of Headwater People Consulting
Matt EchoHawk-Hayashi, Co-Founder and Principal of Headwater People Consulting, will close out the Deep Dive Day conference with a vision of a future where inclusion is the status quo of all design. He will weave in his experience of indigenous cultures that value the wholeness of community, rather than its segmentation. Designing spaces for separation limits everyone's experience, because the reality is, we are so much better when we are together.

3:50-4:00 pm
SCAC Call to Action