PHAMALY

PHAMALY News:

• Review: PHAMALy succeeds in this classic musical

  July 31, 2011

  by Deb Flomberg

  If you’ve never seen a PHAMALy show, then you are missing out. PHAMALy (Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League) is a unique theatre going experience – one that will cause you to rethink your own views on disabilities and how we, as society, view their perceived limitations. The wonderful thing about PHAMALy is that they present high-quality shows that don’t hide an actors disability, instead it simply is part of what makes up that specific character. The result of this blending of so many different disabilities is a unique and often welcome change to many of the traditional musicals that we all know and love. Their current production, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, is another production that showcases this exceptional company and their high quality entertainment.

  http://www.examiner.com/theater-in-denver/review-phamaly-succeeds-this-classic-musical-review-1

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• News: Acts and Answered: Jenna Bainbridge

  July 31, 2011

  by Deb Flomberg

  Jenna Bainbridge is a local actress who has been making a big impact on stage with PHAMALy (Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League.) She was stunning as Belle in last year’s production of Beauty and the Beast, she recently competed in the Miss Colorado Pageant, and she’s currently wowing audiences with her heartwarming and lovely performance as Rosemary in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

  http://www.examiner.com/theater-in-denver/acts-and-answered-jenna-bainbridge?CID=examiner_alerts_article#ixzz1TnR37it9

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• News: Diversity boosts PHAMALY's 'How to Succeed'

  July 28, 2011

  by Adam Goldstein

  Any production of “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” runs the inherent risk of obsolescence.

  The comedy may have picked up the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1962, but much of the material shows the clear signs of its age. The workplace antics are seeped in the politics, gender roles and hang-ups of the 1960s, elements that can be tough to make relevant for modern audiences.

  But PHAMALY’s current production manages to do just that, thanks to a thoughtful imagining by director Steve Wilson and a skilled cast. The story of J. Pierrepont Finch (Jeremy Palmer) and his rapid rise to the top echelons of an average corporation sparkles with fresh insight. Palmer’s ambition doesn’t come off as overly raw and heartless, and the comedy’s lead female role doesn’t feel stuck in any clichéd gender roles.

  http://www.aurorasentinel.com/guide_entertainment/on_stage/article_ad6ff85a-b921-11e0-b00f-001cc4c002e0.html

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• News: How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - Colorado Backstage

  July 26, 2011

  by Holly Bartges

  It’s not enough to state PHAMALY’s production of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying at the Space Theatre is spectacular. That’s expected from Colorado Backstage and from me. It’s a well-known fact I am a Fan of these amazing artistic people.

  http://www.coloradobackstage.com/reviews/phamaly/hts.shtml

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• Review: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying Denver Post review

  July 22, 2011

  by John Moore

  “”How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying ” is brimming with the signature elements that for two decades have drawn both worldwide attention and curiosity to the all-handicapped theater company called PHAMALy: Strong performances, savvy production values, a wicked sense of humor and a disarming air of self-deprecation. This troupe is a veritable “How to …” handbook in itself: How to … provide performance opportunities for the disabled. How to … shatter stereotypes. How to … let the hot air out of society’s collective (wheelchair) tire. PHAMALy’s annual summer musical at the Denver Center invariably leaves many first-time audiences in a state of awe, forced perhaps to re- evaluate preconceptions about the presumed limitations of the handicapped.”

  Click here for the full review plus a photo montage from the production! [http://www.denverpost.com/theater/ci_18516879][1]

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• News: PHAMALY: How to succeed in theater, even if it's trying

  July 21, 2011

  by Adam Goldstein

  Mark Dissette is the first to admit that the cast and crew members in PHAMALY had a lot to learn when they mounted their first production more than 20 years ago.

  The nation’s only handicapped performing arts organization showed signs of its inexperience in its early days, said Dissette, an Aurora resident and Gateway High School graduate. That core crew of actors, singers and techies didn’t have the same backgrounds as the rest of their peers in the metro area’s theater scene, he added.

  “If you’re in high school and you’re in a wheelchair, they’re not going to cast you,” Dissette said. “This ain’t ‘Glee’ … They don’t always get the opportunities to learn the basics.”

  http://www.aurorasentinel.com/guide_entertainment/lead/article_2f3ce5f2-b3e9-11e0-8664-001cc4c03286.html

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• News: PHAMALy musical gives voice to deafness

  July 17, 2011

  by John Moore

  Actress Nicki Runge calls herself not just deaf, but “deaf with a capital D.” And that has nothing to do with the completeness of her hearing loss.

  “To me, ‘Big-D deaf’ means I am proud that I am deaf. And I am happy to call myself deaf,” Runge said through Lynn Williams, one of the many volunteer interpreters who have made it possible for the veteran actor to perform in the handicapped theater PHAMALy’s just-opened musical, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying​” at the Denver Center.

  Wait … musical?

  It’s OK to snicker. Runge does that — a lot. It’s really the only time you can hear any sound come out of her.

  “It is interesting, because one thing musical theater requires is singing — and obviously, I can’t,” she said through Williams, letting out a little infectious squeak.

  “I don’t have a voice.”

  http://www.denverpost.com/theater/ci_18479493

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• : PHAMALY receives Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce Small Nonprofit of the Year Award

  July 15, 2011

  by Gloria Shanstrom

  Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce Awards PHAMALY 2011 Small Nonprofit Organization of the Year

  (Denver ...

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• : PHAMALY nominated for 8 Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Awards

  July 15, 2011

  by Melanie Mayner

  The 6th Annual CTG Henry Awards will be held in the Stage Theater on Monday ...

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• News: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - Westword, Night & Day

  July 14, 2011

  by Susan Froyd

  You can always expect a new spin on even the most classic of Broadway musicals when the members of PHAMALY (aka the Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League) hop, roll and limp onto the stage. And you can expect another success story when the troupe mounts a true-to-the-book, 1960s-style production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying that opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Stage Theater in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

  “This is a really interesting show for us,” notes PHAMALY production manager Melanie Mayner. “This is the first time in our history of more than twenty years that we’ve ever had a profoundly deaf actor on stage in a show.” That’s actress Nicki Runge, who worked with a sign interpreter at rehearsals. “We do not try to ignore the fact that she’s deaf, and there are some cool moments as a result,” Mayner continues. “The big number ‘Coffee Break’ is actually built around her disability, and I think the audience will be totally taken with it. That’s a big twist for us this year.”

  http://www.westword.com/events/phamaly-how-to-succeed-in-business-without-really-trying-1830097/

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• : RFP pro bono design services

  April 28, 2011

  PHAMALy is requesting proposals from designers, design firms and/or advertising agencies with experience and ...

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• Press: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying cast announced

  April 20, 2011

  Denver – Join the Brotherhood of Man when PHAMALY presents “How to Succeed in Business Without ...

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• Review: PHAMALy rides deluge into drama

  January 21, 2011

  by John Moore

  The handicapped theater company PHAMALy had been presenting rousing Broadway musicals for 17 years before adding dramatic plays to its repertoire in 2007. With its solid new staging of “The Diviners,” it’s clear that its acting is catching up to its singing. Anchored by a measured, understated performance by Jeremy Palmer, PHAMALy is presenting, perhaps for the first time, a nonmusical that can stand alongside the work of the better theater companies in town. That’s the handiwork of first-time PHAMALy director Christy Montour-Larson, who has lovingly crafted Jim Leonard’s Depression-era tale with a decent and unpretentious touch. She also happens to be at the top of her craft, most evident in the creative, confident way she stages the harrowing, climactic river scene.

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• Review: A divine interpretation of Depression-era drama

  January 20, 2011

  by Adam Goldstein

  Jim Leonard Jr.’s Depression-era drama “The Diviners” taps into that anonymous, frightening energy — it becomes a constant, unnamed presence that lurks behind the conversational tone and measured pace of the piece. A looming storm deeply affects the characters in Leonard’s fictional Indiana town of Zion; their collective fates seem tied inextricably to the course and current of the river that cuts through their land. The PHAMALy theater troupe’s current staging of the show does a fine job of balancing that larger undercurrent with folksy charm and affecting characterization. Compelling human drama finds a place alongside larger themes of faith and nature. Individual questions of family duty and religious devotion play out in a daunting, symbolic landscape. Most striking, perhaps, is the way this particular company tackles the drama’s central theme of personal gifts. Since 1989, PHAMALy — short for the Physically Handicapped Artists and Musical Artists League — has worked to provide professional opportunities for actors, artists and crew members living with physical disabilities. The theme in “The Diviners” of looking past superficial appearances to find deeper, inner gifts gains an added power in this production.

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• Review: Jim Leonard's The Diviners flows pretty well in this PHAMALY production

  January 18, 2011

  by Juliet Wittman

  I was surprised to discover that Jim Leonard’s The Diviners was written as recently as 1980. The play feels like a period piece, and not just because it’s set in the Depression. Buddy Layman, the central character, was brain-damaged by an almost-drowning at the age of four, during which his mother died; since then, he has been so terrified of water that he refuses to allow his father to wash him. But paradoxically, this young boy also has a miraculous ability to predict rain, and to locate water sources for his parched fictitious town. Into this setting comes a stranger — think Orpheus Descending (there’s even a significant blue bird in Diviners, as in that magnificent text), Picnic, The Music Man — named C.C. Showers (surely no pun intended?), a preacher who’s abandoned his mission and is seeking manual work. Showers forms an understanding bond with the boy. But the religion-ridden town has been without a church for a while, and several of the women are wildly excited when they realize that Showers is the former preacher. Despite his protestations that he no longer has faith, they insist on seeing almost every move he makes as evidence of a divine mission.

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• News: PHAMALy production of 'Diviners' focuses on personal gifts

  January 6, 2011

  by Adam Goldstein

  AURORA | Don Mauck wasn’t much impressed when he attended his first PHAMALy show in 1997. He’d heard about the theater troupe from his then-girlfriend, now his wife, who thought the company might be a perfect fit for Mauck, who is blind. “She called me up one night and said, ‘I saw this thing on Channel 7. There’s a theater group called PHAMALy and they’re all disabled. You’re a really good singer, why don’t you check this out?’” Mauck said. “I was a singer and a musician, that’s all I was, but we went and checked it out.”

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• News: Vox PHAMALIA: Triage featured in the Denver Post

  November 15, 2010

  by John Moore

  Vox PHAMALIA: Triage, enjoyed a successful run at the Avenue Theater November 6 - 14,2010. Read this great story by John Moore that ran in the Denver Post on Sunday November 7.

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• Press: The Diviners Media Release

  October 18, 2010

  PHAMALY (The Physically Handicapped Actors & Musical Artists League) presents “The Diviners” January 13 – 30, 2011 ...

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• Press: Vox PHAMALIA: Triage

  October 7, 2010

  PHAMALY PRESENTS ITS 2010 FALL STUDIO SERIES VOX PHAMALIA: TRIAGE AT THE AVENUE THEATER

  (Denver ...

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• Review: Phamaly's Beauty and the Beast enchants

  July 22, 2010

  by Juliet Wittman

  And there I was, ten minutes into the performance, in that state of tranced enjoyment that this company — made up entirely of disabled professional actors — almost always induces, and trying to figure out yet again how Phamaly does it.

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