Acting Offers New Avenue of Activity for Handicapped : Theater: Starmakers, a nonprofit theater group in Carlsbad, presents productions for the developmentally and physically disabled.

The instant Mary Jane Gerrard parked her car outside Carlsbad’s Calavera Hills Community Center, her 24-year-old son jumped out of the passenger seat and ran toward it.

“Hurry up, Mom!” Steven Gerrard yelled over his shoulder. “Hurry up!”

Steven, an actor with Down’s syndrome, was rushing to a rehearsal for his upcoming stage performance in Starmakers’ “Nightingale,” a participatory children’s play written by John Urquhart and Rita Grossberg.

“He gets excited,” said Mary Jane Gerrard, smiling as she followed Steven into the recreation center. “He really looks forward to this.”

Starmakers is a nonprofit theater group sponsored by the Carlsbad Parks and Recreation Department and the North San Diego County Chapter of the Assn. for Retarded Citizens. A self-labeled “open access theater company,” Starmakers presents theatrical productions to the public and features developmentally disabled and physically disabled performers.

The troupe will present “Nightingale,” a play adapted from a Hans Christian Andersen story dealing with the evils of greed, tonight through Saturday at the Carlsbad Cultural Arts Center. The play will be interpreted for the hearing impaired.

Claudia Leonesio-Mons, Starmakers’ artistic director, founded the company in 1984, shortly after moving to San Diego County from the Midwest. The Escondido resident called the Assn. for Retarded Citizens and pitched the concept of starting a North County-based disabled theater troupe. The organization liked the idea, and Starmakers was born.

“I just called them at the right moment,” Leonesio-Mons said. “They’d wanted to do (this type of project), but they didn’t know of anyone who was qualified for this position. It was perfect timing.”

Leonesio-Mons began working with disabled performers in the early 1980s when she was a resident performer with the Hutchinson Repertory Company in Hutchinson, Kan.

“They had a grant to start a puppet troupe featuring developmentally disabled puppeteers, so when I wasn’t on tour, I inherited the position of starting a puppet troupe.”

Leonesio-Mons and Starmakers choreographer Karol Ryan bring more than 20 years of experience to Carlsbad, where tonight, a group of 10 special performers will perform in front of upward of 300 people.

Unlike the Carlsbad-based Performing Arts Theater for the Handicapped, which is a classroom-oriented theater group designed to help handicapped actors get roles in TV and film, Starmakers begins and ends with presenting their own productions. Leonesio-Mons and Ryan believe that everybody involved with Starmakers--the performers, the audience and the instructors--benefits from the experience.

For Steven Gerrard, working with Starmakers is an important learning tool. In his seven years with the group, Steven has learned to interact with other people--both disabled and non-disabled individuals--and has improved his communication skills.

“This has made him more independent,” his mother said as she watched her son rehearse. “He has more self-confidence.”

“I think you can almost teach anything to this population through the arts,” added Ryan, a former instructor at Sierra Vista High School, a school for the handicapped in Vista. “They learn how to get along, they learn how to cooperate with one another, they learn how to work as a group. They have to memorize the script; they use their mind and their memory.”

Leonesio-Mons believes that acting with Starmakers also provides the disabled performers with a much-needed sense of accomplishment.

“They get some self-esteem,” said Leonesio-Mons. “They realize they have something special to offer, something worthy of applause that people appreciate.”

Starmakers instructors make a “poor stipend,” according to Ryan, but neither she nor Leonesio-Mons are in it for the money. Ryan lists “unconditional love, non-judgment and freedom to be a child” as the primary dividends she receives from working with the mentally retarded.

“They allow you to be all the best things that you are and not feel inhibited,” she said. “Everything is beautiful in their world. They are very accepting, very loving people to be around. They love and they forgive with a real generous heart. They have mastered all of the important things.”

With “Nightingale,” Ryan and Leonesio-Mons hope their performers can convey these special qualities to audiences--young audiences in particular. Five of the seven performances will be presented exclusively to elementary school children.

“I think what will help most is to have the average 7- or 8- or 9-year-old see us on stage,” said Leonesio-Mons. “Seeing the developmentally disabled actors perform will indeed effect how they treat (retarded) people for the rest of their lives.”

Starmakers will present “Nightingale” at the Carlsbad Cultural Arts Center, 3357 Monroe, Carlsbad, through Feb. 9. Tickets are $2-$5. Call 726-2250 for further details.