THEATER : She Soars Higher Than She Thought She Could : Drama: A paraplegic actress lands a solid role, but she finds the doors of Hollywood still locked to most of the disabled.

Ellen Stohl, a paraplegic, posed for Playboy magazine in 1987 to show the public that disabled doesn’t mean asexual, to demonstrate, as she said at the time, that she was desirable, “a total woman.” Her latest project is teaching her a few things that she didn’t know about herself.

Stohl, whose spine was crushed and her legs paralyzed in a 1983 car accident, has been rehearsing “She Also Dances,” a two-character play being presented by the Stop Gap theater company at the Gem Theatre in Garden Grove (it opens Saturday). Nine scenes are bridged by dance sequences featuring Stohl and co-star J. D. Burns.

“At one point,” Stohl said last weekend, “J. D. lifts me high above his head and my arms are locked and I’m arched at the back and he’s holding onto my waist.” Being lifted that high “is something I never thought--that anybody ever thought--that somebody with no use of their legs could do.”

Stohl, who spends “almost more time out of the chair” on stage than in it, hopes the play will prompt audiences to reject their own limiting preconceptions, and not just about physical constraints of the handicapped.

Kenneth Arnold’s drama about a bitter, disabled debutante and a frustrated gymnast who wants to be a dancer “is not about a woman in a wheelchair,” Stohl said. “It’s a play about people fighting external labels to become themselves. And we all, whether we are blond or in a wheelchair or too heavy, are fighting the externals.”

The play’s love scene is critical to the evolution of both characters, added Stohl, whose character Lucy “goes through most of her life feeling as if she doesn’t deserve to be close to anybody.” Ted, played by Burns, struggles with stereotypes of male dancers as gay. “The lovemaking is symbolic of (her self-acceptance) not just as a woman, but as a woman with a disability and imperfections, and of her acceptance of him as he is.”

Confronting stereotypes is a subject with which Stohl is all too familiar. Aspiring to act and model after her accident, the Cal State Fullerton theater and communications graduate hoped her Playboy pictorial (she wrote to request it) would persuade previously unwilling employers to hire her.

She was the first and only disabled woman to appear in the magazine, according to a Playboy spokeswoman. The eight-page layout showed her lounging semi-nude and fully clothed in her wheelchair. It prompted a national debate and made her a media star but, Stohl said, largely failed to break down Hollywood’s doors.

Wearing a pair of short culottes and thick black tights held at mid-thigh by lacy garters, the San Fernando Valley resident discussed the barriers to “equality” for disabled actors with the ardor of an environmental activist crusading against the Greenhouse effect.

Gregarious and articulate, the blue-eyed 25-year-old said she lectures nationwide on sexuality, disabilities, self-esteem and motivation, and writes a first-person column for an Arizona journal for the disabled. She studies acting, performs in showcases and has had some modeling and cable television jobs.

“She Also Dances,” directed by Stop Gap co-founder Don R. Laffoon (it has been produced in Europe and the United States since its 1983 debut at South Coast Repertory), is her second play.

But Hollywood producers and casting agents “won’t even consider me because I use a wheelchair. And that’s really disheartening.” Unable to find an agent to represent her, Stohl is told time and again that “ ‘there just aren’t that many parts for actresses in wheelchairs.’ ”

To these remarks, she responds: “I’m not an actress in a wheelchair. I’m an actress. I happen to use a wheelchair,” and she contends that she can play many of the roles that an able-bodied actress can. “I can be a wench, I can smuggle cocaine, I can get involved in love relationships. I just want to be considered a person first.”

Citing the movie “Children of a Lesser God,” whose female star Marlee Matlin was deaf, Stohl said the entertainment industry has taken “baby steps” toward improving the situation. But “the hard bottom line is I’ve had two audition calls (in the past) year.”

The problem boils down to “ignorance and money,” Stohl said, explaining that producers believe that working with someone in a wheelchair will take more time.

“If it’s going to take me longer to get dressed, I’ll hire a dresser out of my salary,” she said. “Plus, there’s always camera crew and people around to help you if you need to get up a flight of stairs.”

But the Hollywood axiom “time is money” seems to hold fast, she said. “And the truth is, there are so many other (able-bodied actresses), why bother? Well, they have to bother because there are some good (disabled) actors out there.”

“She Also Dances” opens Saturday and will be performed Thursdays through Saturdays through March 24 at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees March 11 and 18 at 2:30, at the Gem Theatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. The March 18 performance will be signed for the hearing-impaired. Tickets: $15. Reservations and information: (714) 636-7213.