Phamaly Theatre Company
TypeNon-profit
IndustryEntertainment
GenreTheatre / Disability
Founded1989
Headquarters
Denver, CO
,
United States
Area served
Denver Metro
Websitewww.phamaly.org

Phamaly Theatre Company (formerly the Physically Handicapped Actors & Musical Artists League or PHAMALy), also known as just Phamaly (as in "family"), is a theater group and touring company based in Denver, Colorado, formed entirely of people with disabilities from across the spectrum.[1] Phamaly was founded in 1989 by five people living with disabilities who wanted to create a theatre company that provided individuals like them with the opportunity to perform.[2] Since their debut, Phamaly Theatre Company (PTC) has produced more and more shows each year, including original works which have received multiple local awards, such as Denver Post Ovation Awards, Westword Awards, and Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Awards.[3] The company's season also includes various touring and educational shows.[4]

Origin

A group of five students living with disabilities (Kevin Ahl, Richard Britton, Kathleen Traylor, Gregg Vigil, and Teri Westerman Wagner) from the Boettcher School in Denver, Colorado founded Phamaly in 1989.[5] They all shared a frustration for the lack of theatrical opportunities for individuals with disabilities from all identities—racial, ethnic, gender, and class. Beginning in 1990 with their first show Guys and Dolls, the art company has reimagined their work to maintain the principle of inclusion.[4] The spacial and structural challenges characteristic of American theatres persisted in the company's early days as it was founded before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.[5][6]

PTC performed shows that were traditionally not about disability, such as Oklahoma!, The Wiz, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Democrat in order to "reframe the audience's thinking about what it means to have a disability."[5] Their shows presented the actors as "real" people who face the realities of disability, stretching the able-bodied limitations of the traditional shows. Although PTC is now the leader in theatre with disabled artists, they struggled to be seen as a serious company because their approach is about the normalcy of disability, something not yet represented in current spaces.[5]

History (1992-2007)

In their successful debut at the Denver Center for Performing Arts (DCPA) with Anything Goes (1992), PTC entered a prevailing community partnership with the DCPA. After their tenth show- Side Show (1999)- Denver Mayor's Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture is awarded to PTC.[3] In 2003, The Pajama Game received the Denver Post Ovation Award for Best Choreography (Debbie Stark).[3]

At the turn of the new year, Steve Wilson stepped into the art company as the new artistic director, implementing a new direction for PTC while maintaining inclusivity. Along with Wilson's appointment, PTC's second production of Guys and Dolls (2004) received the Westword Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Lucy Roucis).[3] 2005 came with even more recognition for PTC as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2005) received the Denver Post Ovation Award for Best Musical and Best Director (Steve Wilson) as well as the Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical (Steve Wilson).[3]

On August 29, 2006, Phamaly was featured in a lengthy segment of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS.[7] This marked the company's first mainstream national publicity. Previous to that, Phamaly is also the subject of a documentary short entitled We Are PHAMALY directed by Daniel Junge.[8] Long-time company member Mark Dissette made a feature-length documentary, There's Still Hope for Dreams (A PHAMALy Story) (2008).[9] In 2007, PTC debuted their first non-musical Our Town (2007) in the Aurora Fox Arts Center which begins a 10-year partnership between the two organizations.[3] That same year, PTC received the Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical (Juliet Villa), Outstanding Lighting Design (Stephen D. Mazzeno), Outstanding Choreography (Debbie Stark, Cindy Bray) and Outstanding Direction of a Musical (Steve Wilson) for Urinetown the Musical (2007).[3][10]

Theatre Accessibility

Phamaly Theatre company provides various accommodations to its performers in order to make theatre more accessible. The actors are offered these accommodations from the get-go, as they are stated on casting calls.[11]

To make the audition process more accessible for neurodivergent people, Phamaly Theatre Company provides detailed information about what to expect at their facilities.[12] This information is provided on their website and includes pictures to give cast members a heads up about sensory information such as what colors to expect.[12] Further Phamaly Theatre's The Wiz makes the stage more accessible by allowing the actor to explore creative liberty with their disability such as using it as a metaphor, instead of labeling it as distracting for the audience.[12]

Phamaly theatre contrasts with other disability theatres because their aim is producing traditional works while other theatre companies center disability in their narratives.[13] In its founding, the theatre company did not focus on making social commentary about disabilities and they continue to view their social impact as a result that comes with their main goal, making theatre accessible.[13] Phamaly theatre's style is that of Bertolt Brecht which is described as alienating the audience instead of alienating the actor and their disabilities. The goal of the Brecht model is to make the audience think critically about their presumptions about disabilities. Regular attendees of the Phamaly Theatre Company claim that the performers' disabilities go to the back of their minds as they watch performances until the script requires them to consider the experience of inaccessibility.[13]

2007-2022

Since the fall of 2008, PTC produced a series of sketch comedy productions entitled Vox Phamalia. Performed by Phamaly artists, these cabaret-style shows consist of original comedic, dramatic, and musical material written in a workshop over several weeks before being performed.[14] The 2011 version – Vox Phamalia: Quadrapalooza – received numerous awards and nominations from Denver theatre critics, including one for Best Director for Edith Weiss, who originated the Vox Phamalia series.[15]

Year after year, PTC continued to win community awards. 2012 saw another original comedy series titled disLabled marked the company's debut appearance in the city of Boulder, Colorado, and recurred for two years in 2013 and 2014.[16] Then, as Bryce Alexander took over as artistic director, Phamaly traveled to Osaka, Japan to present its first international performance The Fantasticks (2015). The production won Denver Mayor's Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture. In 2016, Regan Linton became the first person with a disability to be artistic director as well as the "first wheelchair user to head a major U.S. theatre company".[3]

Through the development of Morph Masters: How Disability Made Famous Artists Awesome! (2019), PTC collaborated with Phamaly actors to present a show that focuses on famous artists who live(d) and work(ed) with a disability. PTC was awarded Best Theater for the Classics by Best of Denver 2020 Westword.[3] With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, PTC stayed resilient. Utilizing the unpredictability and adaptability of the disabled experience became their advantage, PTC created accessible and inclusive online programming for artists and audiences.[12] Along with the launch reading salons which gave Phamaly actors the change to read classic and contemporary works, the art company also developed a web series known as Rewrite- which views classics from a disability perspective.[12]

Phamaly success stories

Two members of Phamaly – Regan Linton and Jason Dorwart – have gone on to earn, respectively, a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting and a PhD in Theatre and Drama, both through the University of California, San Diego.[17][18] In fact, Regan Linton was the first actor in a wheelchair admitted into this MFA at UCSD.[19] Linton went on to become the first wheelchair user to be cast as a company member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and currently serves as Phamaly's Artistic Director. Dorwart is now assistant professor of Global Theatre Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University after spending four years as visiting assistant professor of theater at Oberlin College.[17] In addition, Laura Alsum, one of the original Vox Phamalia actors/writers, completed the Masters program for screenwriting at UCLA where she won the Tribeca Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize for Screenwriting.[20] Long-time Phamaly member Lucy Roucis was featured doing her stand-up comedy act about Parkinson's disease in the 2010 romantic comedy Love & Other Drugs.[21] Long-time company member Jeremy Palmer earned his MFA in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California and went on to win the Tribeca Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize in 2018.

Inclusion

As PTC values access and inclusion, the company provides accommodations that are not often seen in other theatre companies.[5] For example, during the audition process, PTC provides actors with materials in braille and American Sign Language upon request, viewing events to explore the space, and neutral readers to assist in cold readings.[22] In addition, PTC hosts post-show talkbacks with their audiences where actors laugh and connect with audiences who feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar with disabilities. Through the process of show production, accommodations have created a humanizing and de-sensitized space for disability.[22]

In addition, PTC manipulates the stage in innovative ways to place disability onstage. Urinetown, the Musical! is a prime example of the "provocative" productions which showcase the actors' differences and capabilities. For example, Steve Wilson's decision to incorporate a blind chorus line during the song "Mr. Cladwell," acquired a new meaning to an "ensemble" as performers helped one another to enter, exit, and change positions.[23] The scenic design of the stage was also carefully and creatively calculated for the disabled actors, reimagining artistically the stigmatization of disability. By considering sight-line issues, the designers painted two traps with the prominent wheelchair logo, acting as a public pay toilet.[23] As actors rolled over the traps, they were lowered to be in partial view of the audience to "empty their colostomy bag," thereby commenting on the daily realities and privacy concerns of those with physical disabilities.[23]

Production history (1990–2019)

Previous Phamaly productions have included:[24]

References

  1. 1 2 Moore, John (December 30, 2015). "2015 True West Award: Phamaly Theatre Company's 'Cabaret'". DCPA Newscenter. Denver Center for Performing Arts. Archived from the original on March 20, 2016.
  2. ↑ "About Phamaly". Phamaly. Retrieved March 26, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "History & Awards". Phamaly Theatre Company. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
  4. 1 2 "About Phamaly Theatre Company". Phamaly Theatre Company. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Wolf, Stephanie. "How The Crushed Dreams Of 5 Disabled Actors Became The Phamaly Theatre Company". Colorado Public Radio. Retrieved 2022-05-02.
  6. ↑ "Art Talk with Phamaly Theatre Artistic Director Regan Linton". www.arts.gov. Retrieved 2022-06-06.
  7. 1 2 Bowser, Betty Ann (August 29, 2006). "Denver Theater Featuring Disabled Cast Gains Popularity". PBS Newshour. Archived from the original on January 19, 2011. Transcript.
  8. 1 2 Crosetto, Alice; Garcha, Rajinder; Horan, Mark (2009). Disabilities and Disorders in Literature for Youth: A Selective Annotated Bibliography for K-12. Scarecrow Press. pp. 263–4. ISBN 978-0-8108-6962-2.
  9. ↑ "There's Still Hope for Dreams, A PHAMALy Story". Denver Film Society. Archived from the original on March 27, 2016. Retrieved March 27, 2016.
  10. ↑ Calhoun, Patricia (July 11, 2008). "Oh, Henry! A Rewarding Night of Theater Awards". Westword. Archived from the original on March 26, 2016.
  11. ↑ Reiffenrath, Tanja (2016). Memoirs of Well-Being. doi:10.1515/9783839435465. ISBN 978-3-8394-3546-5. S2CID 217271323.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 "How Denver's internationally-known Phamaly Theatre is surviving the coronavirus crisis". The Denver Post. 2020-08-14. Retrieved 2022-05-02.
  13. 1 2 3 Floro BAS. Enlarging the place: Adapting the community theatre rehearsal process for elderly persons, persons with mobility impairment, and persons with autism spectrum disorder. [Order No. 10823621]. State University of New York at Buffalo; 2018.
  14. 1 2 Moore, John (October 28, 2011). ""Vox" is PHAMALy's knee-slapping sketch comedy – knees optional". Denver Post. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011.
  15. 1 2 Moore, John (December 24, 2011). "2011 Denver Post Ovation Award Winners". Denver Post. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012.
  16. 1 2 Veltman, Chloe (April 24, 2014). "Weekend Arts Roundup". Colorado Public Radio. Archived from the original on April 28, 2014.
  17. 1 2 Holicky, Richard (May 1, 2015). "The Transformation of Regan Linton". New Mobility. Archived from the original on June 16, 2015.
  18. ↑ "About Jason Dorwart". UC San Diego. Archived from the original on October 3, 2015.
  19. ↑ Sefel, John (October 2012). "Finding PHAMALy". Stage Directions. 25 (10): 34–36. ProQuest 1170957010.
  20. ↑ Guerrasio, Jason (February 28, 2014). "Get To Know Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize Winner Laura Alsum". Tribeca Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014.
  21. ↑ Moore, John (November 13, 2010). "Parkinson's comedy has Denver actress riding high". Denver Post. Archived from the original on March 27, 2016.
  22. 1 2 McRae, Talleri A. (2018). "The Aesthetics of Inclusion". Theatre, Performance and Change. pp. 247–252. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-65828-5_26. ISBN 978-3-319-65827-8.
  23. 1 2 3 Thornberry, Rebecca Stone (2008). "Urinetown, the Musical! (review)". Theatre Journal. 60 (2): 278–280. doi:10.1353/tj.0.0021. S2CID 192076356. Project MUSE 240552.
  24. ↑ "Past productions". Phamaly. Retrieved March 26, 2016.
  25. ↑ Lillie, Jim. "Step Right Up". Westword. Archived from the original on February 18, 2005.
  26. ↑ Wittman, Juliet (June 12, 2008). "Side Show". Westword. Archived from the original on March 27, 2016.
  27. ↑ Kleinman, Jessica (September 10, 2012). "Phamaly Presents: Cyrano de Bergerac". Theatre. 303 Magazine. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  28. ↑ Kennedy, Lisa (December 22, 2013). "Best of 2013: The 10 highest theater notes that made a critic happy to be watching". Archived from the original on December 24, 2013.
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