Ability Montana brings local disability stories to Carroll College Theater

Ability Montana brought local disability stories to Carroll College’s FLEX Theatre, where Helena residents with disabilities and chronic illnesses described their lives in their own words instead of through policy or outside interpretation. The two-night production ran May 14 and May 15 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the lower level of the Campus Center, with tickets listed at $10.

The program, Let’s Talk Disability, is built as a monologue production that amplifies the voices of people with disabilities while fostering dialogue, understanding and awareness. Ability Montana says each year brings a new cohort of local participants who share personal stories about what disability means in daily life, from work and relationships to mobility, independence and identity. In Helena, that meant a stage filled with stories that could be emotional, humorous, profound or lighthearted, while keeping the speakers themselves at the center of the conversation.

That structure mattered because it challenged a familiar barrier in civic life: people with disabilities are often discussed in terms of services, access or compliance, but not always heard as narrators of their own experience. The Helena production gave families, educators, health care workers, advocates and neighbors a chance to listen to how accessibility gaps show up in real routines and real relationships, and how those gaps shape everything from getting around town to feeling included in public life. The event was meant to do more than entertain; it asked the community to understand disability as lived experience.

Ability Montana, a nonprofit Center for Independent Living and one of four such centers in Montana, said it serves 14 counties in southwest Montana through offices in Helena, Bozeman and Butte, including Lewis and Clark County. The Helena production also marked a continuation of a local effort that began in 2024, when the program first came to Carroll College after growing out of Butte. Ability Montana has also highlighted individual participants through its podcast, including Katie, who shared her experience living with Long COVID and adjusting to disability.

At Carroll College, the renovated FLEX Theatre provided a practical campus venue for that visibility, placing disability storytelling in a setting where students, faculty and residents could hear it plainly. For Helena, the value of the event was not just in what was performed, but in who got to speak for themselves and be heard.