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A group of Southern Californians don't let their disability hold them back.
"It's a theatre troup where all the performers are blind. It not only didn't hold them back; it's serving as inspiration to others; and raising money for worthy cause," Dr. Bruce Hensel said.
They can't see, but they can act.
Twice a week, six blind actors travel for hours by bus, by access rideshare, to get to rehearsal for the CRE Theater Outreach Program.
"It's like an escape for me. I could be someone different than who I really am," actor Ernest Pipoly (pictured) said.
Pipoly had a stuttering problem.
Bert Grose was blinded by gun shots and lost much of his memory.
"It's pretty amazing. They actually learn their lines through tape recording. They'll tape-record the lines, play them back and that's how they learned their lines," Shane said. "There's no one pulling them on and off stage, it's the other actors giving them sound cues ... It's really about them learning to trust each other."
Together they wrote a play, called Hiding Eyes, a mafia thriller. After months of rehearsal, a transformation started to take place.
Ernest no longer stuttered; Bert started remembering more things; And Ernie broke his silence.
"When I started, I couldn't speak one word for 15 minutes. It was hard sweat, but now I'm speaking," Alvarez said.
And on opening night at the Edgemar Theater in Santa Monica, a sold-out crowd showed up.
"Show night is crazy night. The response that we've gotten is resounding. It's just incredible," Shane said.
At the end, a standing ovation -- and new found purpose.
"A blind person can do anything he or she sets his mind to do," Pipoly said.
And at least one cast member, Ernie Alvarez, is ready for his closeup: "Hollywood, and let action begin!"
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.