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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. Phamaly was founded in 1989 by a group of former students of the Boettcher School, a now-closed school for the disabled. The students were frustrated with the lack of theatrical opportunities for people with disabilities and wanted to create a theatre company that provided those individuals with the opportunity to perform. Phamaly Theatre Company performs primarily at the Denver Performing Arts Complex and the Aurora Fox Theatre. The company's season also includes various touring and educational shows. Its recent seasons have seen productions tour outside the state of Colorado into neighboring Wyoming, as well as Osaka, Japan.

Contents

 * 1Recognition
 * 2Productions
 * 3Phamaly success stories
 * 4Production history (1990–2019)
 * 5References
 * 6External links

Recognition[edit]
Phamaly Theatre Company has gained national attention and has received numerous local awards, including the Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and Theatre Company of the Year from 5280 Magazine and the Alliance for Colorado Theatre.[citation needed] Phamaly's 2005 production was awarded two Ovation Awards from the Denver Post, including Best Musical and Best Director, was recognized by the Rocky Mountain News as one of ten best productions of the year, and was named top overall show by the Boulder Daily Camera.[citation needed] At the 2008 Henry Awards (Denver's version of the Tonys), Phamaly won four awards with Urinetown: The Musical, 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).

On August 29, 2006, Phamaly was featured in a lengthy segment of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. 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. Long-time company member Mark Dissette made a feature-length documentary, There's Still Hope for Dreams (A PHAMALy Story) (2008).

Phamaly was honored to receive grants for community impact from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2013 and 2014.[citation needed]

Productions[edit]
Phamaly performs a musical every summer, usually in the Space Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Complex.[citation needed]

In January 2007, the company opened the first non-musical production in its history at the Aurora Fox Theatre on historic Colfax Avenue. The company has performed at the Aurora Fox every winter since. In 2011 it expanded to the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities as well.[citation needed]

Since the fall of 2008, Phamaly has also produced a series of sketch comedy productions entitled Vox Phamalia. These cabaret style shows consist of original comedic, dramatic, and musical material written in a workshop over several weeks before being performed. 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.

2012 saw the start of another original comedy series titled disLabled which marked the company's debut appearance in the city of Boulder, Colorado, and recurred for two years in 2013 and 2014.

Throughout its history, Phamaly has also had a number of touring productions consisting of original and previously produced pieces. These productions have been performed at schools, corporate events, community gatherings, and resort venues. Since 2012, Phamaly has had a regular touring series of children's theatre productions that has traveled all over Colorado and Wyoming.[citation needed]

Phamaly success stories[edit]
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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Production history (1990–2019)[edit]
Previous Phamaly productions have included:


 * Guys and Dolls (1990)
 * Oklahoma! (1991)
 * Anything Goes (1992)
 * Kiss Me, Kate (1993)
 * Fiddler on the Roof (1994)
 * How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1995)
 * A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1996)
 * Mame (1997)
 * The Boy Friend (1998)
 * Side Show (1999)
 * Grand Hotel (2000)
 * Damn Yankees (2001)
 * Once Upon a Mattress (2002)
 * The Pajama Game (2003)
 * Guys and Dolls (2004)
 * Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2005)
 * The Wiz (2006)
 * Our Town (2007)
 * Urinetown: the Musical (2007)
 * One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (2008)
 * Side Show (2008)
 * Vox Phamalia: Tales from the Crips (2008)
 * Stand Up for Democracy (2008)
 * Steel Magnolias (2009)
 * Man of La Mancha (2009)
 * Vox Phamalia: Redux (2009)
 * Barefoot in the Park (2010)
 * Beauty and the Beast (2010)
 * Vox Phamalia: Triage (2010)
 * The Diviners (2011)
 * How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2011)
 * Vox Phamalia: Quadrapalooza (2011)
 * The Elephant Man (2012)
 * Cyrano, an adaptation by Joe Roets of Cyrano de Bergerac (2012 touring production)
 * disLabled (2012)
 * Little Shop of Horrors (2012)
 * Vox Phamalia: Cinco de Vox (2012)
 * The Foreigner (2013)
 * disLabled: Improvise, Adapt, & Overact (2013)
 * Fiddler on the Roof (2013)
 * Vox Phamalia: G.I.M.P. Nation (2013)
 * It's a Wonderful Life (2013)
 * The Velveteen Rabbit (2013 touring production)
 * The Glass Menagerie (2014)
 * disLabled: Disorderly Conduct (2014)
 * Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2014)
 * Vox Phamalia: Pity Pity Bang Bang (2014)
 * Rapunzel (2014 touring production)
 * The Fantasticks (2015) Toured to Osaka, Japan
 * Baby With the Bathwater (2015)
 * Red Riding Hood (2015)
 * Fuddy Meers (2016)
 * Taking Leave (2016)
 * Evita (2016)
 * James and the Giant Peach (2016)
 * Pygmalion (2017)
 * A Midsummer Night's Dream: Workshop Production (2017)
 * Annie (2017)
 * VOX: Under Construction (2017)
 * Romeo and Juliet: Workshop Production (2018)
 * Into the Woods (2018)
 * Harvey (2018)
 * Morph Masters: How Disability Made Famous Artists Awesome! (2019)
 * Phamaly 30th Anniversary Concert (2019)
 * Summer Musical TBA (2019)
 * Come to Your Senses Play Festival (2019)