Bill's story guides California theater

Editor's note: Mary Galde contacted Bill's Coffeeshop for help finding copies of "Bill" and "Bill On His Own." She wanted to show the films to actors preparing for a production of "The Boys Next Door," a play about four men who live in a group home. The story has many similarities to the story of the group home where Bill Sackter lived in Iowa City.

Galde was director of this show, which was presented at Broadway West Theatre in Fremont, Calif. (For more information, visit this website: www.broadway-west.com). She describes the link between Bill's Coffeeshop and this production of "The Boys Next Door" in the "Director's Notes" she wrote for the program. Here is an excerpt.

By MARY GALDE

Theatre is at its best when it entertains and also educates. "The Boys Next Door," a wonderful play by Tom Griffin, does just that. It's compelling entertaining, uplifting and potentially life altering. Griffin worked closely with the mentally handicapped for years and obviously understands that they share the same diversity of experience as anyone: love, joy, laughter, humor, sorrow, pain and difficulty. The difference is that the life journey of the mentally handicapped is more difficult because of society's tendency to discount them, to throw them away without looking to see what's inside

My journey through the weeks of helping the actors has awakened in me an awareness and compassion that wasn't fully there before. My hope is that you will enjoy tonight's performance, but moreso that you will find yourself more accepting, more aware.

Preparing for the roles of the characters in the play requires a good deal of research. Helping with this research were two movies, "Bill" and "Bill On His Own," starring Mickey Rooney. They are true stories about the life of Bill Sackter -- his struggles, friendships, and eventual position at Wild Bill's Coffeeshop, a project of the School of Social Work at the University of Iowa. Although 30 years have passed, the coffeeshop is still a part of campus life in Iowa City.

Tom Gilsenan, former editor of the Milpitas Post, forwarded copies of both movies for us to use.