The first family of the PHAMALy theater troupe

From John Moore, The Denver Post theater critic:

It's a story as undeniably adorable as Lyndsay Giraldi and Jeremy Palmer (pictured) themselves. Two striking young actors from Denver's nationally renowned handicapped theater company fall in love and marry. Now the affable duo are starring together as the adorably love-struck newlyweds in Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park."

Meet the Palmers, the first family of PHAMALy — the Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League.

Boy, it would just ruin this whole story if they weren't, in fact, affable and adorable.

Wait: Director Edith Weiss assures us that they are.

"I imagine that working with Jeremy and Lyndsay is like working with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor — only without the narcissism, alcoholic rages and monstrous egos," Weiss said with a laugh.

Last week, the Palmers giggled through an interview while harriedly moving into their first house as a married couple. Yes, like Jane Fonda and Robert Redford moving into their first apartment in that famous movie.

Well, Lyndsay, 25, did most of the giggling. Jeremy, 26, was busy with paperwork and gassing up the rental truck.

Their story begins in 1998. Jeremy, already a stage veteran at 15, was starring as Young Jim in the Denver Center Theatre Company's "Treasure Island." Lyndsay developed an immediate "cute crush" seeing the play on her eighth-grade field trip.

"I remember waving at him after the show — and he ran right up the stairs without waving back," she said. "I think he was afraid of me."

In his defense, Jeremy interjects, "I got a lot of waves from the girls in those days."

Fast forward to 2004 at the University of Colorado-Denver where, by fate, the two were taking the same acting class. Lyndsay eventually confided in Jeremy that she's completely deaf in her right ear and can hear only 70 percent in her left ear. It's a condition not even she can pronounce, so, back in the moving truck, she defers to her husband.

"It's bilateral perilymph fistula," he says. Well, OK.

Little did she know then that Jeremy was born with one lung and multiple congenital heart defects that have required two open-heart surgeries. For Jeremy, that meant surgery on the right side of his chest, where his heart is. It's called dextrocardia.

Though Jeremy was bound for California, he told Lyndsay about PHAMALy, which has presented one lavish professional musical each summer since 1989. In 2007, the company added an annual winter play (like "Barefoot") at the Aurora Fox. Jeremy had been performing for PHAMALy since 1997, when he appeared in "Mame" at age 14.

"Because of my condition, it got into my head that I was somehow different,"

Art imitates life this month as Lyndsay Giraldi-Palmer and her husband, Jeremy Palmer, play newlyweds in PHAMALy's production of "Barefoot in the Park." (Michael Ensminger )Jeremy said. "But being in PHAMALy just made me a lot more empathetic to people who have experienced real hardships."

Jeremy credits PHAMALy for his current career pursuit — he's working toward his certification to teach special education for Denver Public Schools.

"I think it put me in a whole different mind-set about people who experience such great difficulties in their everyday lives just because of things they were born with and have no control over," he said.

Lyndsay auditioned for "Guys & Dolls," and was cast as Sarah Brown. The next year, Jeremy returned to Colorado to star in PHAMALy's landmark production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." It was set in an asylum where all the performers were patients. It was the couple's first show together, and let's just say sparks flew — in technicolor.

"I never really knew what 'soul mates' meant until I met him," Lyndsay said.

Just four months after they started dating, Jeremy proposed — at Disneyland (aww). He just knew, he says. The two were married Aug. 5, 2006.

"The reason I was confident proposing to her so soon was because not only did we have similar interests, but it quickly became clear we had similar values," said Jeremy, the son of a Protestant minister. That she was Catholic quickly became a nonissue.

"It was all about the importance of faith," he said, "and our faith is very real for both of us. When you believe that you are part of a bigger plan, you also believe there is one person God has set aside to be with you for the rest of your life."

The rest has been, well, a honeymoon. And now they are playing honeymooners. Lyndsay says they're basically just playing themselves. And she's happy she didn't have to learn how to kiss an unknown co-star. "I can do whatever I want with him on stage," she said of Jeremy.

Not that it's all been easy. Jeremy works two jobs; Lyndsay has one while also working toward her theater degree at Metropolitan State College, with an emphasis in sign language. "That would not only be helpful to me, but I think it would be kind of cool if someone in the company can sign and act at the same time for PHAMALy," she said.

They've also lived somewhat between two worlds. To look at the Palmers, you'd never believe either qualifies to perform with an all-handicapped theater ensemble. But outward appearances can be deceiving.

"I've had people all my life say, 'Well, you're not in the deaf world,' and yet I'm not completely in the hearing world either, so you don't belong anywhere," said Lyndsay, who was even denied a college scholarship because her hearing wasn't impaired enough.

The couple will face their greatest challenge this summer. Jeremy just found out he must undergo a third open-heart surgery to replace an aortic valve.

"I am pretty scared about it," Lyndsay admitted, but her husband's reassurance is quick, firm — and speaks for the both of them.

"She is scared," he said, "but we're going to be just fine."

Thanks in part to that other family, the one with the funny spelling.

"I know with his surgery coming up that I not only have my family for support but my PHAMALy as well, and that's something a lot of people don't get," she said.

When asked if they credit PHAMALy for their lives together, Lyndsay is quick to say yes. But Jeremy has another take on it that surprises her.

"PHAMALy was an instrument that God used to bring us together, but I think one way or another we would have crossed paths," he said. "I am glad it happened through PHAMALy, but I absolutely think that when you have a soul mate, that's who you are going to end up with."

Which momentarily stops her.

"That's very cool, Jeremy," she finally says. "Thank you."