When Joe Link was a student at St. Xavier High School and Xavier University, he was never involved in theater productions. Yet a passion for bringing the experience of drama to people of all ages, with and without disabilities, has been a driving force for him since 1993.

        With the first performance that year of the Renegade Garage Players, so called because rehearsals and performances took place in a garage, Mr. Link knew that he had created something that could carry on a spirit of inclusion that he says is too often forgotten after second grade. The play was Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, and one of the lead roles was played by Dana Metcalf, who is blind.

        Next weekend, the summer season of the Renegade Garage Players opens at Eastminster Presbyterian Church with the production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Mr. Link, a Wyoming resident who teaches at Hamilton High School, promises that it will be a production unlike any audiences are accustomed to experiencing. Wheelchairs and crutches are commonplace stage accessories in Garage Player shows; but they are not props. They are the routine equipment of actors who are disabled.

        Mr. Link and co-director Maria Werle, a special education teacher at Ross School, recruit actors from area high school and college groups. Many of these actors have gone on to pursue acting careers (one is now an opera singer in San Francisco), and many have never before been in the company of people with disabilities. The other half of the recruiting effort occurs at Stepping Stones, Clovernook Center for the Blind, and other agencies serving people with disabilities.

        “People with disabilities have typically not had an opportunity to act or be involved with theater productions,” Mr. Link observes.

        “As adults, they tend to be somewhat segregated. What we do is go beyond the excellent work done by social service agencies and create an artistic and service atmosphere where full inclusion is the norm.”

IF YOU GO

• What: Our Town   • When: Performance 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday   • Where: Eastminster Presbyterian Church, 4600 Erie Ave.   • Cost: Free. Donations accepted.   • Accessibility: The facility is wheelchair accessible.   • Information: (513) 761-9517.

        In Our Town, exactly half the performers have disabilities.That was just the natural outcome of casting actors interested in the parts. Actors in current and past performances have ranged in age from 9 to 72, and have represented such disabilities as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, multiple sclerosis and mental disabilities. To accommodate actors, lines have been put on tape, into Braille and memorized with assistance from a collaborating actor.

        Furniture onstage is arranged to aid in maneuverability for actors with disabilities. The best part, Mr. Link says, is the magic of interaction that occurs among the actors themselves.

        “Many of the people who get involved are coming because they want the opportunity to act,” he explains. “They're basically rude, insensitive artistic types who haven't given disability much thought.” By the end of a production, however, these are the actors who are exhibiting signs of total comfort with disability, instinctively offering assistance when needed to their fellow actors with disabilities.

        The education and collaborative spirit doesn't stop there. People with disabilities, too, learn about those with other sorts of limitations and offer assistance when possible.

        “If we have someone in the show with a behavioral disorder,” Mr. Link says, “everybody gets involved in keeping that person on the straight and narrow. People with visual impairments help other actors with physical disabilities, and vice versa. ... Essentially, everybody pretty much finds their own adaptations, and the actors work things out among themselves.”

        This will be the first year the Renegade Garage Players had more than one production, with three plays planned this summer.

        Throughout the rest of the year, the group holds poetry readings and fund-raisers for service and educational purposes. Each March, for instance, a volleyball and euchre marathon raises funds for the American Cancer Society.

        Those two activities were selected, Mr. Link says, because they are activities that a number of people with disabilities and college students enjoy.

        This year, the Garage Players established a board of directors and has a budget of $10,000. The future envisioned by Mr. Link and Ms. Werle includes staff positions and a year-round effort of drama productions.

        E-mail dkkendrick@earthlink.net. Past columns at www.enquirer.com/columns/kendrick

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