Interact Center of St. Paul performs for the princess of Thailand

Jeanne Calvit and storyteller Kevin Kling are off to meet the princess of Thailand.

"I'm going to have to comb my hair," Kling said several days before embarking on a trip intended to promote St. Paul-based Interact Center for the Arts.

Kling will perform excerpts of a show that he, Calvit and other Interact artists developed during a visit last February. "The Love Show" was built with patients, parents and friends of the Rajanagarindra Institute of Child Development as an example of how Interact's model of using performance and art can benefit people living with disabilities.

The institute, located in Chiang Mai, is celebrating its grand opening with two days of events. Her Royal Highness, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, will drop by to watch the Interact performance. Given her interest in the arts, disabilities access and children, the princess' endorsement would be a big boost to Interact's dreams of establishing a center in Thailand.

"Meeting with the princess is a bigger deal than meeting with President Obama," said Calvit, the artistic director who has built Interact around the idea that people with disabilities find confidence and expression when they perform on stage.

"The president can be voted out of office," Calvit said, "but she's there for life, and if the princess would endorse this, you would have all these people getting on board and saying, 'We will do this.' "

The institute is dedicated to the physical and mental health of children in northern Thailand. It provides research and advocacy for children with developmental and physical disabilities, behavior and mental health issues and chronic conditions.

She is the daughter of King Bhumibol, who has reigned since 1946 and represents a line that assumed power in 1782. The king is the head of state in Thailand's constitutional monarchy.

Interact is nearing 20 years old as an organization that offers a visual arts studio and a theater to draw out the talents of people with disabilities. Calvit brought an unsentimental and demanding approach to the task, insisting that performers use their platform to celebrate their artistry rather than "whine about the fact that they're oppressed," she said in a 2001 interview.

The company's shows got noticed for their astonishing sense of honesty, pride and enthusiasm — and curiosity sprouted in other locations. Interact Nola, in New Orleans, is built on the same model, and Calvit was able to generate enough interest during a few trips to Australia to establish a day program in Adelaide.

Thailand represents a challenge similar to Australia. Interact can't afford to send a staff halfway around the world for a lengthy stay that would be aimed at building a curriculum.

"The goal is to have people come here and be trained," Calvit said. "If they said yes, we could leverage money to have their people come here."

Kling was a key figure last winter in shaping the "The Love Show" — a process that he described as a matter of determining the talents of the performers and using those gifts. In other words, he did the opposite of writing a show and then finding actors to fill the roles.

"You want to feed into the strengths of the performers, what a person can bring and then put that into the play," he said.

Kling, who was born with a shortened left arm, bonded with a youngster who has the same condition.

"He has two fingers and I have four fingers," Kling said of the boy, named Future. "This kid is just magic."

Recalling the trip last winter, Kling said the faces of actors kept coming to mind. "To see their lives transformed and their families who think they know the limitations of these performers," he said.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299