Two summers ago, Portland Opera director of education Alexis Hamilton attended a musical performed by artists from Portland’s PHAME Academy, which serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She hoped the organization might help her make the Portland Opera To Go education and outreach program more accessible. But she was so impressed by the production that she imagined a bigger project.

“After I saw that,” Hamilton recalled, “I was really on fire” to collaborate with PHAME — on an opera.

That 2017 production, “In a Single Breath,” coincided with the arrival of PHAME’s new executive director, Jenny Stadler, who was looking for ways “to overcome the invisibility” that separates many people with disabilities from the rest of society. One method: Give PHAME students opportunities to tell their stories to the larger public. After Hamilton approached her about collaborating, Stadler woke up with “a middle of the night epiphany: we help them become inclusive, and they teach our students how to create an opera.”

That culminated in PHAME’s new rock opera, “The Poet’s Shadow.” PHAME artists created the story, music and design — as well as acting, singing, dancing and playing most of the music.

“As far as I know, it’s a first-of-its-kind partnership with an opera company working with adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities to produce an opera,” Hamilton said.

Artists from Portland's PHAME Academy rehearse for their upcoming rock opera, "The Poet's Shadow," created in collaboration with Portland Opera.Friderike Heuer

Teachers at PHAME, a 35-year-old Portland nonprofit, conducted a series of classes that covered the history of opera, libretto writing, graphic and costume design, composing music on iPads, singing and more. Students collaboratively devised an original story about a poet suffering from depression who breaks up with her lover and embarks on a mythical journey to discover the source of her negative feelings — and what she wants from life. Then they wrote the words the characters would sing and speak. “This libretto is very sophisticated and many-layered in its fairy-tale clothes,” Hamilton said.

Students also created musical themes representing each character, which PHAME director of art and education Matthew Gailey, who’s also the show’s musical director, arranged into music for the eight-member PHAME iPad orchestra, 20-voice chorus and a string quartet from Metropolitan Youth Symphony.

Students also conceived visual ideas for costumes, set, video projections, even the poster. Stadler estimates that “at least half of our student population has had their hands on this program.”

Professional designers helped bring the artists’ ideas to the stage. Portland Opera donated Hamilton’s extensive teaching time, production materials, and the performance venue.

“It’s been an interesting investigation of developing my character and making her my own,” said PHAME artist and board member Anne-Marie Plass, a principal actor in the show who had never acted until she arrived at the academy in 2008. “How do I use my hands and body, gestures and blocking to help tell her story?”

Artists from Portland's PHAME Academy rehearse for their upcoming rock opera, "The Poet's Shadow."Friderike Heuer

The production also gives participants tools they can apply in later endeavors, artistic or otherwise, Plass said, including self-confidence and teamwork skills.

Hamilton and Stadler expect future collaborations, and PHAME already plans to work with Oregon Ballet Theatre, Portland Center Stage and LineStorm Playwrights. “As we partner with more organizations willing to share those stories, the experience of disability will get out into the world,” Stadler said. “They’ll have personal connections with people who have disabilities” that may open Portland performing arts to other disabled performers.

“It’s exciting for the students because they get to take their talents as far as they want to,” Hamilton said. “And it shows the Portland community what’s possible and offers other companies a model for building relationship with a constituency that may not have crossed their radar.”

“The Poet’s Shadow”

When: 7 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Aug. 23-24, 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 25, 7 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, Aug. 28-30, 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31.

Where: Hampton Opera Center, 211 S.E. Caruthers St.

Tickets: $5-$30, phamepdx.org/poet or 503-764-9718, ext. 4.

An earlier version of this post gave an incorrect phone number for tickets.

PHAME is planning to collaborate with Oregon Ballet Theatre. An earlier version of this post named the wrong dance company.