PHAMALy

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The Physically Handicapped Actors & Musical Artists League, or PHAMALy, is a theater group and touring company formed in 1989 when a group of former students of the Boettcher School in Denver, Colorado, frustrated with the lack of theatrical opportunities for people with disabilities, decided to act. PHAMALy performs at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Aurora Fox Theatre.

PHAMALy is a nonprofit organization with a straightforward mission: to enable persons with disabilities to showcase their talents and abilities through live productions and to make the performing arts more accessible to everyone.

The group strives to empower actors as they acquire and improve their acting skills and educate theater professionals in methods of adapting their own productions to the needs of people with disabilities.

PHAMALy has gained national recognition and has received numerous Denver Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and the Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Most recently, 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. At the first annual Henry Awards (Denver's version of the Tonys), PHAMALy was nominated for four awards and won one: Outstanding Direction of a Musical (Director Steve Wilson for Joseph...).

On August 29, 2006, PHAMALy was featured in a lengthy segment of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. This marked the company's first mainstream national publicity.

In January 2007, the company opened the first non-musical production in its history: Thornton Wilder's classic, Our Town, at the Aurora Fox Theatre. PHAMALy's 2007 summer musical will be Urinetown, to be performed at the DCPA.