August 12, 2026: A protest that helped launch a movement

This is Colorado Matters from CPR News in KRCC. I'm Ryan Warner. They wanted to ride the bus, and they were willing to be arrested to make their point. That protest in Denver 48 years ago helped spark a movement, which led to the Americans with Disabilities Act. CPR Stephanie Wolf traced the history of the disability rights movement in this country and the challenges that remain. Hi, Steph. Hi. Important history indeed, which began right here in Colorado. Shortly, we will hear your reporting via the Sunday story hosted by NPR's Aisha Roscoe. What most surprised you as you researched this? Well, just initially, how common it was for people with disabilities to be institutionalized. So living in nursing homes and being of... all ages. This was their life living in a nursing home. So much of this history around the movement was really unfolding while I was in middle and high school. So it wasn't something I learned about growing up in my formal education. But then I was working on a story about family theater company in Denver roughly seven years ago. And through one of these interviews, I heard about this protest in 1978, and I simply need it to know more. Family Theater Company, which features folks with disabilities. The fight that you were made aware of, indeed later on in life, continues, and it's not just to expand rights, but to maintain the ones folks fought for, not to retreat. We'll talk about that. Stick around, Steph. Let's first hear the Sunday story with Aisha Roscoe. Let's go back in time to this exact day 36 years ago. It's when President George H.W. Bush picked up his pen and signed a landmark piece of legislation. And welcome to every one of you out there in this splendid scene of hope spread across the south lawn of the White House. The legislation was the Americans with Disabilities Act. An immense civil rights law. Disabled people could no longer be excluded from jobs, public transit, restaurants, stores, and hotels. As he put his name on the law, President Bush thanked the biggest stakeholders, who were perhaps the loudest in advocating for the bill, the tens of millions of Americans with disabilities. And to all of you, I just want to say your triumph is that your bill will now be law, and that this day belongs to you. And on behalf of our nation, thank you very, very much. One major act of inclusion the law provided involved independence. The ADA opened the door to Americans with disabilities to live and receive care in their own homes, to live within their community rather than in a nursing home or institution. It's a hard fault right gained after years of activism.

Today on the Sunday story, NPR's Joseph Josh Shapiro and Stephanie Wolf of Colorado Public Radio are going to share their reporting on this bedrock of disability rights in the U.S. I was on the South Wall of the White House 36 years ago today as a reporter to cover the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. People came from all over the country with every kind of disability. It was a celebration. Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. God bless you all. I've covered the disability rights movement for decades now. The ADA and all those protections won by the disability community, they're all tied to this right for independent living. And that's the idea that disabled people want the same lives as everyone else to go to school, to get jobs, to live with family and friends, to be part of their community. They didn't want to live in institutions and nursing homes where... Before the ADA, people often lived if they needed daily medical and personal care. Independent living is about getting that care in their own homes. And that's why we want to start our story by telling you about Nikki Bishop. Bishop has a neuromuscular condition called spinal muscular atrophy type 2. I was diagnosed when I was about five years old, and basically the person just gets progressively weaker as they age. Bishop's 39. She was just a kid when the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. So she grew up in a world where so much more was possible for her as a person with significant disabilities. She has a full life now. She's a licensed clinical social worker in the Denver area and a disability advocate. I've run into her at the Colorado State Capitol before as she lobbied in support of different disability rights bills. So I could walk until I was about nine years old, but always had sort of struggle walking. And then just progressively got weaker as I aged to the point where I have really limited upper mobility, cannot walk at all. So Bishop relies on attendance who come to her house to help her live this very full life. They help her get out of bed, get dressed, bathed, and ready for work. Because Bishop can't move her body on her own, she depends on AIDS about 23 hours a day. It's expensive care, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year if she had to pay for it herself. Private insurance, the kind you get through your job, doesn't pay for it, but Medicaid does. That's the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled. It allows Bishop to have not just her full-time career, but also to be a parent to a nine-year-old.

This is my son, Adri. Without the disability civil rights movement, Bishop thinks she'd probably be in a nursing home today. Just the amount of opportunities that I've had, you know, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. But like with the gang of 19 and, you know, that generation of advocate, they paved the way for me so that I could be successful. The Gang of 19. This nearly forgotten group of activists is a big reason Bishop is where she is today. In 1978, in Denver, this gang, really, it was just a small group of young people in wheelchairs, carried out an extraordinary act of civil disobedience. It helped set in motion an era of activism that won rights like getting Congress to pass the ADA. We want a right. It's a fierce title, The Gang of 19. But the group of young people met in a place where they had almost no power, a suburban Denver nursing home, and not a good one. No activities, nothing to do, warehouse, physical injuries, bed sores, a lot of bed sores. This is Denver Civil Rights Attorney John Holland talking to us about that nursing home, Heritage House. It was a cesspool. I mean, they had cockroaches and cereals. Debbie Tracy, I had a photograph of her with flies in her face. She couldn't move her arms, just covered in flies. Heritage House was not a place where these young people could thrive. After all, Holland would later sue that nursing home for mistreatment and neglect. But the nursing home would also prove to be a turning point in their lives. That's where they met a man named Wade Blank, and he would show them they were capable of extraordinary things. Blank, who died in 1993, wasn't disabled. He was a Presbyterian minister who turned to political action. Blank was a student in seminary in Chicago when he marched with Martin Luther King at Selma. He did civil rights work in big cities, and he was a chaplain at Kent State. But after four students were shot during a protest against the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, Blank said he felt burned out. He needed a change. He moved to Denver. And he took a job at Heritage House, the nursing home, on the wing with the young residents. He was horrified by conditions there. So was his colleague, Barry Rosenberg. Most of the people who were there... We're not there because they wanted to be there, that there was no place for them. The young residents of the nursing home received support through Medicaid. Back then, it only paid for long-term medical and personal care inside nursing homes. Institutionalization of Americans with disabilities of all ages was common back then. We realized some of it was a civil rights issue, you know.

Wade Blank, with the help of Rosenberg, began taking these young people out into the community. They went to rock concerts and on camping trips. I had this Volkswagen van and I took people everywhere. It was a taste of freedom. And Blank kept pushing for more. He wanted the nursing home to feel more like a college dorm for these young residents. He got them to register to vote. He wanted them to make decisions for themselves, like what they wanted to eat and when they wanted to go to sleep. He wanted them to have more agency over their own lives. He challenged the way things were done. Blank had this idea, which some viewed as radical, that these young people should live in their own homes and get their care there. The nursing home eventually fired him. That same year, in 1975, Blank co-founded a Denver group to help find housing and provide other services, including attendant care, for these young people who'd been stuck at the nursing home. They called it Atlantis Community. Wade felt that there were people who were lost. and were brilliant people who lived and were undiscovered. Blank convinced the city to lease public housing to residents leaving the nursing home. But people and wheelchairs were living out in the community, they quickly learned getting around town was tough. Sidewalks lacked curb cuts, those sloped ramps down from the sidewalk to the roadway you see in most intersections today. So those with physical disabilities couldn't easily and safely get from one block to another. And even if they could, city buses weren't accessible. Wade Blank understood that riding a bus was a symbol of American civil rights. Here's Blank speaking to that in an old interview with a TV news outlet. You can measure how a society views an oppressed group by how they treat them in public accommodations. And you can't say hire the handicap and then not have public chance to be well accessible. Things came to a head when civil rights attorney John Holland learned that the Denver Metro Transit Agency was going to purchase more than 200 new buses. And they were not going to make them wheelchair accessible, although lifts had been invented. Holland immediately called Wade Blank. And I said, You hear about the buses? He said, I did. I said, well, how would you like to be a plaintiff? They sued, but lost in court. Blank felt they needed a new tactic. He was a student of the civil rights movement and of civil disobedience. So in that summer of 1978, just days after they lost their court case, he asked the disabled people he'd met at the nursing home to take their fight to the streets of downtown Denver, to one of the...

busiest intersections in the city at a bus stop near the state Capitol building. We have a right to ride on the buses, so I think that probably it'd be a good idea to go out and board a few buses. Blank directed one of them, a man named George John Roberts, to get in line for the bus in his wheelchair. So on July 5th. George John Roberts sent patiently at the bus stop waiting for the next bus to come. When the door is open, he said, can I get on? This is blank, at a commemoration event for the protest. He recalled that since there was no wheelchair lift, the driver was confused. And when the bus driver closed the door, saying no to George. We gave a hand signal and all the other 18 moved into the streets and blocked that bus. I mean, it was incredibly... Easy as long as you had the will to do it. Brian McLeod is one of the last living disabled activist from this demonstration. Once the bus was stopped, you have somebody immediately go to the door of the bus. A second person rolled their wheelchair in front of the bus. And then they have a third person. go to the side of the butt where the driver can't pull out and go on this way. So he's basically trapped. He knows he's, he can't move anywhere. 19 people in wheelchairs surrounded the two city buses. They held signs that said things like taxation without transportation, and they chanted in the streets. They would become known as the gang of 19, and they were demanding access to get onto the bus and ride. And we stayed in the streets all night until 10 o'clock the next day, July 6th. That was our shot around the world. When the police came after the buses were... occupied. The police came and they shouted and they got in people's face and no one budged. This is Barry Rosenberg again. He came to the demonstration to help the protesters. No one spoke. No one talked back. They just sat and were quiet. The gang of 19 had been taught how to do civil disobedience by Wade Blank. They knew to stand their ground. And that created a problem for the police. Well, they weren't going to arrest anybody in a wheelchair.

That was pretty obvious. Bill Rome was a personal care attendant. Not only were the optics look bad, but the actual process of trying to get them off the street and getting them into wheelchair, inaccessible vans to take to the police. I just don't think that was on their itinerary. The police could not figure out how to arrest people in wheelchairs. Buses weren't accessible. nor police fans, the jail, or the courthouse. So, instead, they began detaining the aides assisting those in wheelchairs. Lisa Wheeler, one of those attendants, challenged the officers. Why are you arresting the able-bodied person? This person, this person in the wheelchair has been here for longer than I have. And it's, you know, it's their fight. Arrest them. Why won't you do that? He said, he told me I needed to be quiet and I'm going to be charged with a resisting arrest. Then, you know, I got handcuffed. Wheeler and Rome were not disabled, nor were they protesting. As attendance, their role was to help the disabled protesters, eat, take medicines, empty catheters. In other words, to ensure those people in wheelchairs were healthy and safe. I moved to dismiss the charges on the grounds of equal protection violation. Attorney John Holland went to court to get the charges against the attendance dropped. What lesson were they teaching? The lesson was you don't even deserve to have a civil rights movement, which pissed everybody off. Holland argued that the disabled members of the gang of 19 had been denied their civil right to be arrested. The right to be arrested for protesting is an odd right, but it is a right. You have the right to be taken seriously, and you don't get that right if they don't. The judge agreed. The gang of 19 protesters won the right to be arrested and treated like any other protest group. And they achieved their biggest goal. The Denver Metro Transit Agency eventually agreed to pay for wheelchair lifts on the new fleet of buses. Disabled people could now get around town. It made the city a nationally recognized leader in having accessible buses. The right to be in the world. That's what the movement was about. That is what the movement is about. Shunned, excluded, barred, and barricaded. You know, the right sought was the right to be included. Bobby Simpson, another surviving member, says it was important, and that's why he did it. It kind of scared me a little bit. You're proud of it now, though? Yeah. It changed lives. CPR Stephanie Wolfe joining NPR's Joseph Josh Shapiro for the Sunday story with Aisha Roscoe. When we come back, the fight moves beyond public transit. And new challenges emerge in today's charged political climate. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News.

It's Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. When protesters risked arrest to board a Denver bus nearly 50 years ago, they helped spark a movement that would result in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Let's rejoin NPR's Aisha Roscoe. We're back with the Sunday story and reporting from Joseph Josh Shapiro and Stephanie Wolf about 19 disabled young people. In 1983, they became founding members of a national grassroots advocacy group called Adapt. At first, their mission was to get wheelchair lifts on all public buses across the country. But eventually, they started fighting for a wide range of disability rights. ADAPT became known for its very in-your-face theatrical style of protesting. They'd go to public transit conventions and chain themselves to the building or buses, or organize sit-ins at government offices, demanding to talk with officials and policymakers. ADAP members also began demonstrating for the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA. the new federal legislation to protect people with disabilities. By the time Congress was debating the ADA, it had been more than a decade since the gang of 19 had blocked the buses. ADAPT had grown its ranks and there were chapters around the country. So in March of 1990, ADAPT members caravanned from different parts of the U.S. to Washington, D.C. They organized a rally of hundreds. near the U.S. Capitol building. Landmark first, civil rights law, for people with disability. I was there that day at 1990 when about three dozen people came out of their wheelchairs and crawled up the 83 marble steps of the U.S. Capitol. Each carried a scrolled paper to give the members of Congress with the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. Like the Declaration of Independence, ADA will pave the way for the emancipation of hundreds of millions throughout the world. The demonstration became known as the U.S. Capitol Crawl, a visual protest of the barriers faced by people with disabilities. There was also effective behind-the-scenes lobbying from national disability groups. Every member of Congress got visits from constituents. Parents of disabled kids, disabled veterans, disabled people explaining why they needed a civil rights law.

Soon after, Congress passed the ADA with large bipartisan majorities. It was a huge victory. Still, advocates felt the ADA was the floor, not the ceiling. I went to Denver's central library branch to look through its archives on ADAP's history and found documents showing that after the ADA passed, ADAPT members still found plenty to protest about and get arrested over. It's why their slogan became, Free Our People. One of ADAP's big goals was to recreate what Wade Blank had done in Denver to get disabled people out of nursing homes and other institutions, but now all over the country. That meant finding the funding for attendant care, an aid to help a disabled person get in and out of their wheelchair, out of bed, to get dressed, make meals. That assistance was key to living in the community. It's become the real undercurrent of what they advocate for. Support for people to not get stuck in nursing homes. Then in Georgia, two women with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities who lived in state hospitals sued to get out. Their case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. And in 1999, in what's called the Olmstead decision, the High Court ruled that disabled people who need long-term care have a right to get it in the community. This was huge. It forced states to create services and provide funding to help disabled people live in their own homes, not in institutions. But in the last year, disabled people say the Trump administration has put much of that progress and funding in jeopardy. A recently released Justice Department memo questions decades of protections for Americans with disabilities. They point to cuts in Medicaid and new work requirements to even qualify for Medicaid. And in June, the Justice Department issued a legal memo that suggests states no longer have that obligation to make sure disabled people can live in their own homes. That is set up a potential legal fight down the road. Now, many people in the disability community worry that they'll need to get their care in nursing homes. I mean, we are talking about life and death, right? Not just, oh, you know, some frivolous policy. Nikki Bishop, the Denver area mother and licensed clinical social worker who has a disability and relies on nearly round the clock at home care, is worried all of this independence she's worked so hard to build is at risk. That's because if the federal government isn't acting as a watchdog, she's concerned states will start to chip away at programs that provide in-home support services in order to save money and balance budgets. Olmestead is so fundamentally important for the rights of individuals with disability that it ultimately determines our survival in our community. And so without those programs, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be able to live.

Those cutback be starting to happen in Colorado. In a tough budget year, the state legislature capped paid Medicaid hours for caregivers. Bishop still has professional care coming to her home most days a week. But her dad, Roy, has stepped in to fill the gaps. Yeah, my alarm went off at right at 11, so dad's helping me out with some medication management. It's getting harder. Still, Nikki Bishop shows what's possible for people with significant disabilities. She can work. She can be a mom. She can live in her community. And yes, care for someone with a disability can be expensive. But on average, it costs less to care for someone like Nikki Bishop in her own home than in a nursing home. So here we are on the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and disabled people fear the rights they won with that law are under attack. Advocates I've spoken to, including Bishop, had hoped that by 2026 they'd be pushing for stronger and new protections versus affirming already existing ones. I'm devastated to watch all of this happening and to witness this after we've come so far over the last 50 years. At the same time, I also feel a sense of resiliency from my community. And persons with disabilities in general, we are very adaptable. We have to constantly think on our feet. We have to constantly think outside of the box and how to solve complex problems on a daily basis at times for survival.

Bishop says as the disability rights movement faces these new challenges, she's looking back to the gang of 19 and is ready to take up the mantle, to protest, to fight, to be loud, and to protect those hard-won rights for disabled people to live in their communities like everybody else. That is CPR Stephanie Wolf, joining NPR's Joseph Josh Shapiro for this Sunday story with Aisha Roscoe. And Steph is back with me to wrap things up high again. Hello. And to that landmark federal homestead law, Colorado passed its own version, guaranteeing the right for folks with disabilities to live and receive care, in quote, the least restrictive settings possible. This notion of not institutionalizing. people. What does that mean, Steph, and is that state law coming to fruition? Yeah, well, quite simply, it codifies Olmsted into state law. So it makes this federal regulation state law. One key reason advocates pushed for this during the 2025 legislative session is because Colorado found itself in hot water several years ago. And that was for not living up to its obligations under Olmstead. That's when the U.S. Justice Department sued the state for, quote, unnecessarily segregating adults with physical disabilities in nursing homes and institutions. Which you might assume was just a thing of the past. Yes, but this was found just a few years ago. Colorado and the DOJ reached a settlement agreement over this. Now, Olmsted is still law that DOJ memo you heard about in the Sunday story doesn't change that right now. But as people worry about enforcement on the federal level potentially scaling back, Coloradoans with disabilities have this extra layer of protection, that the idea of community integration under Olmsted is law here in Colorado. Right, state law. So what does that look like on the ground? Well, the new state law does a few things. It puts some funding behind it. And it requires the state to update something known as an integration mandate plan. What's that? This is a comprehensive plan for how the state will ensure that people with disabilities can transition out of nursing homes or institutions in order to live in their communities and stay in their communities. That integration into everyday life. Exactly. Living within their community. Colorado hadn't updated its integration mandate plan for more than a decade, but with this new state Olmstead law, Colorado must do that. They must develop a new plan. That process is happening right now. I've been assured that. And it's expected sometime in 2028. Additionally, the state has hired a dedicated employee, an Olmsted liaison within the Colorado Disability Opportunity Office. And this individual is working across state agencies and departments on this.

issue. In the episode of the Sunday story that we just listened to, you mentioned Steph, budget cuts in the last legislative session. The new law does set aside nearly $660,000. Is that a murky picture? Well, you know, the state has been grappling with a tough budget cycle. And there is concern about that from advocates, how to fund community integration when state lawmakers are having to make really tough budget calls year to year. Last session, there was a bill that would have addressed another concern, which is streamlining the Medicaid process as people transition out of nursing homes to ensure that they have the supports they need to live at home right away. But that bill failed. So people I've been speaking with definitely aren't considering this state Olmsted law a quote, mission accomplished scenario. Here's Jack Johnson with disability justice. Whether the resources are dedicated will still be up to the executive and especially the next governor. But there's at least some groundwork to keep these integration mandates in place. in the time being until advocates can continue to strengthen those protections. And, you know, Johnson said sometimes those protections are won through the courts. The only way that we have really seen success in accountability is through litigation. Unfortunately, that's a really, really brunt force object because, you know, it doesn't follow the policy nuance of finding the money, but it at least requires the state to do something. Stefan, you're reporting on this. Do advocates think they would have been further along by now? I have heard from many people that... Here we are the 36th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And they thought at this point in history, they would be pushing for stronger protections, for newer protections to ensure that people with disabilities can have the kind of life that any Americans strives for. So it is an odd place for some people to be where they're advocating to affirm already existing rights versus working on. what the future could look like. Thanks. Thank you. CPR's Stephanie Wolfe read her reporting on disability rights at cpr.org. And Colorado Matters continues in this next half hour. The longest running disability theater company in the U.S., which, as you heard, inspired Steph's reporting, adapts this historic fight, sets it to music, and offers a world premiere in Denver. I'm Ryan Warner. You're with CPR News and KRCC.

You're back with Colorado Matters from CPR News and KRCC. I'm Ryan Warner. Family Theater Company is the country's longest-running disability theater company, and their latest production is about the longest-running sit-in in American history. 504 The Musical is playing at the Denver Center. The title is a reference to a civil rights law. Director Ben Raanon and actor Jolie Harston spoke with CPR's Alejandro Alonzo Galva for our series Raised the Curtain. All I asked Jolie about her artistic journey. I grew up doing theater, children's theater, community theater, high school, middle school. It was something I was incredibly passionate about. In high school, my chronic illnesses kind of started coming to a head. And I was very sick. And after that in the health journey, I just... wasn't sure I would ever really be able to perform again with the rigorous nature of theater and live theaters especially I moved to Denver about a year ago but I first saw a family show it was the production of the Rocky Horror Show. And I love the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Which you're part of a shadow play cast of it, right? Yes, I am. Colorado's elusive ingredient. Colorado's longest running Rocky Horror Shadowcast. Oh, I love that. But it was the first time I had ever seen disabled actors on stage and seeing, you know, a Janet. And as a wheelchair user, seeing, you know, so many different types of disabilities, I... in the show not being about that. Yeah. It was simply, it was the Rocky Horror Picture show. And it really like blew my mind open that there were people out there, they were already doing this, they were already doing accessible disabled theater. And... I immediately had to become a part of it. I started ushering and volunteering with family very quickly after and have been involved volunteering with them for years. And for 504, Ben, you know, bullied me a little bit into auditioning, but in a wonderful loving one. As a good director does sometimes. You got to get who you got to get. And I'm eternally grateful he did that because. Being a part of the show has been a really once a lifetime opportunity for me and being able to be acting again and with the most incredible cast and the show that is so personal to all of us and also incredibly timely. It's not only like fulfilled me professionally, creatively, but also like emotionally and I have made so many more wonderful. disabled friends and just being able to share that experience with them every day has been such a joy. Not to get to woo-woo right away, but I'm a firm believer that art is one of those things that seeks people out. And I find it strikes me that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is the one that found you because it is a show about figuring out who you are, feeling like you don't belong. Tell me about that.

that show and the role it played. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is exactly what you said it is. It is a show that breaks down all barriers. And I first saw it as a teenager at the Esquire Theater, RIP on Downing. But that was the first time I had ever seen queer people. I grew up very conservative and sheltered. And from then on, I thought, wow, the world is a lot bigger than I thought it was. And I think I might want to explore it a little bit more. The movie, that's where I would see it monthly. I saw, you know, I've seen it in every state I've lived in. And coming back home to Colorado, being able to join the cast has been especially lovely. And I think, like you said, the show is all about breaking down gender norms, you know, societal norms. And I also think that that's why it was so moving to see that the Rocky Horror Show as a family production was because... That was just another way for that show to break norms. And yeah, like you said, it is. That show has always had a bit of a woo-woo line through my life. I'm very grateful it led me to family. It's always good. A little bit of woo-woo line through your life. Ben, okay, the family theater company is... From what I understand, the longest running disability theater in the United States. Is that correct? Yes, we are one year away from being the longest running in the world. If only we can convince Oily Carton London to close, I keep trying and they keep refusing. Just kidding. They're my very good friends that I used to work, but we'll be one year behind them forever. Yeah, hopefully forever. Then you're both. Both heading in that direction. That's right. Tell us about that genesis, because this started back in the 80s as an actors league, from what I understand. Tell us about how that got started and then the evolution of what it is today. Yeah, so family started. There were five actors who went to a school called the Betcher School for crippled children. They... were incredible actors and they got that opportunity at school. But they were five wheelchair users. And as soon as they got out of school, they all decided, well, this is what we're going to do. We're incredible actors. This is what we have to do. And they ended up auditioning everywhere they could go to. And it wasn't even that they weren't allowed to perform. They weren't even allowed to audition. And one night over pizza and beer. after maybe too many beers. As some of the best ideas are. As 90% of the best ideas are, they... just decided, hey, what if we just do this ourselves? And they wrote a grant. They had somebody that had a little bit of grant experience. And they wrote it on a whim expecting who would give us this money. And they got money all of a sudden. And they realized, well, if you get a grant, that means you actually have to do it. And they were producing guys and dolls, which was, you know, the hot, sexy show of the time. And, uh...

literally realize, oh, we're five people. We need like 30 people. So they literally would just get on the street. And if they saw somebody who was blind, if they saw somebody who was in a wheelchair, they'd just go, do you want to act? And the person would say no. And they go, come anyways. And they did. And eventually what a lot of people said was that first show, no one really knew what they were doing. But the audience was just so mesmerized because they were watching it and going like, What is this? This is so different. And breaking the narrative. Breaking the narrative and like not caring, you know, like just being your authentic self on stage and being your most vulnerable self on stage, which is the whole reason we go to theater instead of stream TV shows because you have the opportunity to see somebody. in their true, authentic, vulnerable self. So for years after, family kept producing shows until a partnership with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts came, and family pretty much just taught itself how to produce theater. These aren't people that, for the most part, have had any formal training. These are people that have been trained through life experience and who have decided, I must. tell my story on the stage and it's hard you know like i jo lee i'm sure can speak you know for a lot of actors it's i'm getting in my car and i'm just driving a rehearsal and it's easy joe lee has to you know get her chair in and how are we going to figure that out and are the bathrooms accessible and is the door too heavy to enter in and so When you look at these actors, these are people that are performing because they have to, not just because it's a whim or they want to. Director Ben Rahananan and actor Jolie Harston with Family Theater Company, speaking with Alejandro Alonzo Galva for our series Raise the Curtain. After a break, turning the fight for disability rights into a musical. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. It's Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. 504 The Musical is about the fight for disability rights. It has just had its world premiere at the Denver Center. Let's get back to director Ben Rahanon and actor Jolie Harston, a family theater company. They're speaking with CPR's Alejandro Alonzo Galva for our series Raise the Curtain. Jolie's character is named June. June is an amalgamation of some wonderful disability rights advocates, real people, mainly based on Judy Human and Kitty Cohn, who are leaders of this sit-in and of the disability rights movement. So I had a lot to pull on from them, but at the same time, June is her own person. And I think I found a little bit of myself in June for sure. So I've been able to definitely lean into that. June is so well written by the playwright Abby that it didn't take too much to be able to understand what June was going through in the show and to understand what her motives were and things like that. I think she also has this ferocity about her that I really admire in June. And so it's just been a really great opportunity to figure out, you know, what makes June June.

This is a world premiere. It's happening in Denver. We have our own history of this. We had the gang of 19 that played a huge role in this movement when they pushed to make buses and trains accessible. Talk to me about the decision to do this now and the importance of it being here in Denver. I actually received this script from Abby the playwright and Mason the composer about four years ago. I liked the idea of it. The play, I think, wasn't at a stage yet where it was ready for a production. And just last year, when I was in a bit of a panic, to be honest, trying to figure out what to do for our summer show. Like nothing was hitting the way I wanted it to hit. And like there were a million things we could do, but nothing that felt like we needed to do it. Jenna Bainbridge, who is one of our actors who is currently in Wicked on Broadway, sent me this script and said, look, do me a favor, give it another read. I have been working on this script with them, and it's gone a lot of places. And so I said, of course. Evolved and grown and matured. And I gave it a read again, and I went, oh. Yeah, we're doing this. I think it took me all of 10 minutes after I had finished. I don't even think I listened to the music. Like I had the tracks, but just the lyrics and how much the show had grown and how much it had evolved with them talking to all of these people, talking to blind folks, talking to deaf folks, folks in wheelchairs, folks with chronic illness, that it had sort of become a collage of disabled experience that is what I love. about this show, the sit-in, which remains the longest sit-in in the history of the United States of anybody, not just, yeah, 25 days, not just the disability community, sort of sets a backdrop of, hey, we're all in this room together, we're all disabled, but we all have different disabilities. How do we coexist? How do we... come together and what makes us similar and what makes us apart. I think a lot of the time people think all wheelchair users think the exact same thing and all autistic folks think the same thing. So the story provides a backdrop for very complicated questions to the public to within our own community of how we treat one another, how we look at somebody, one of the greatest. questions is asked in the story of, hey, would you change your disability? And there's an assumption made by June's character going, well, of course I wouldn't change my disability. It's who I am. It's part of what I belong. And then somebody with a chronic illness goes, well, I'm in pain every day. If I could fix that pain, of course I would. And then we have someone who's a Vietnam vet who's going, hey, I was shot in Vietnam. I sure do wish I wasn't shot. Yeah. And it's a complicated look. at disability rights and disability topics, which I think we don't get in a lot of media, even our most well-known disabled stories to me just like put a toe in the water about disability. And it's normally like, hey, disability is not that bad, right? And then the audience has this like cathartic moment where they go, yeah, and then they leave feeling better about themselves. And what I love about this story is,

I am blessed to have 30 disabled creatives in the room, and I am disabled myself, but I don't get it right all the time, and they don't get it right all the time. So it's a beautiful collaboration of all of us looking to figure out how we exist in a world that doesn't really belong to us and isn't built for us. And I will say, I wish this show wasn't as important as it is today. It wasn't when I picked it. But right now we are in a place where a lot of these regulations are being attacked federally. And I don't think people understand what that means because we've gotten so accustomed to the basics of human dignity that... We're not even talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act. We're talking about the thing before the Americans with Disabilities Act that just allows people who have disabilities to exist, not even to get rights, to even be allowed to walk down the street or roll down a street. And, you know, we're selling pretty well. So get your tickets now, I will say. And I was talking to somebody yesterday and I said, God, I think we're, we're. selling pretty well because people are reading about this in the news and seeing it being attacked. And I would give up every single one of those tickets that we are gaining for this not to be an issue. For not to be timely. Not to be timely. I would love for this to be the most untimely show of all time. And people look at me and go, why are you doing this? This doesn't make sense. This is in the past. But it's not. So with this being the world premiere, this is going to be the first time audiences see this? What are you hoping the first reaction is and what they have when they're sitting there? Yeah, I hope there's a lot of questions. I think in a lot of our media and even our recent media, when it comes to disability topics, what we get is a very kind of simplistic idea. There was a musical that was just on Broadway. that talked about the autistic side of the disability coin. And what I left that musical being autistic myself was autistic people are okay, was like the most I was able to glean from that musical. There wasn't any questions that came out of it. And people I talked to had the same reaction, even people that loved it. I'd say, what was the message you took from that? And they go, autistic people are good. And I went, Great. Not all artistic people are good. There are a lot of autistic people who are jerks. There are a lot of autistic people who are the most lovely people in the world. So coming out of 504 the musical, one thing that I have been pushing the playwright and composer to do is ask as many questions as possible of our community because that is what is going to grow accessibility and inclusion in our world. What's one of the questions that speaks to you the most in your character? That's a great question. At the start of the musical, her only identity is advocate or activist. Activism, yeah. And, you know, she's also in the 70s. She's a female activist, which she's held to a different standard than her male counterparts. And so I believe that June starts this musical, you know, that's her only identity. She doesn't let herself think about, you know, love or...

how to take care of herself. It is all about everyone else and getting these things done, which is admirable and we need people like that. But throughout the musical, June, she's forced to sit in for 25 days and think and be with herself and be with other people and listen to other people or have other people make her listen. because she's not willing to listen at the beginning. Because, you know, she's been an advocate for so long. It's her way or the highway sort of a thing. And so I think the beautiful journey that June goes on throughout this show is realizing that we do not have to be one thing. We don't have to label ourselves as one thing. And that the beauty of... Disability is how natural it is, how multifaceted and layered it is. And I think that's what June ends the play with, is holding disability and advocacy in a different way with your community, with your collective, working with people that you don't agree with, having those debates within your own spaces to be able to work together. And... Yeah, I think I'm taking that as well for a lesson from myself. Thank you guys so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Thanks so much. Director Ben Raananan and actor Jolie Harston with Family Theater Company. They spoke with Alejandro Alonso Galva for our series Raise the Curtain. 504 The Musical is at the Denver Center through August 23rd. And that is Colorado Matters for now. I'm Ryan Warner at CPR News and KRC.