We take a break from the never-ending political drama in Augusta for something infinitely more inspiring.

Call it, in the truest sense of the word, “community” theater.

Our lead character is an always gracious, always smiling woman by the name of Maddie Simpson.

For the past 30 years, Maddie and her husband, Tom, have owned and operated Shopper’s True Value Hardware in the Mill Creek Plaza in South Portland.

They’ve raised two kids, Mike and Jessica, both of whom virtually grew up in the store and now work there full time alongside their mom and dad.

They’ve made countless friends over the years throughout South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, where they live. (Myself included — back in the 1980s, we volunteered together for our sons’ Boy Scout troop.)

They’ve indulged their mutual love for musical theater with countless trips to Broadway, Boston’s theater district, the Ogunquit Playhouse and wherever else a good show might be playing. Notes Tom with a smile, “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen ‘Phantom of the Opera.’“

And now, alas, the Simpsons are living a slow-motion nightmare: Maddie, 58, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the always-fatal neurological disorder attacks the brain and spinal cord and, tragically, has no known cure.

“It all started in December of 2008,” Jessica said this week while Maddie, now unable to speak, nodded, smiled and occasionally punctuated her daughter’s remarks with a hearty thumbs-up. “It began with slurred speech — we’d all noticed it for a couple of months and finally we said something to her about it. I don’t think she had picked up on it yet.”

The diagnosis — reached only by eliminating other diseases with similar symptoms — took eight months. Since they received the awful news in August of 2009, Maddie’s family and legions of friends have watched helplessly as she’s lost her voice, developed the telltale pain in her upper legs and shrunk by 55 pounds — swallowing food gets harder by the day.

“She was such a workhorse,” said Jessica, 30, who last fall left her job with a local law firm to help out at the store. While Maddie still comes in every day for anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours, Jessica said, “it’s hard for her because she can’t do what she used to do.”

Truth be told, it’s hard for everyone.

A day doesn’t pass without one or more customers stopping by not necessarily to buy anything, but simply to check in and see how Maddie’s doing. And just after Thanksgiving, while Jessica was reuniting with a few old friends from her days at the University of Maine, a young man named Matthew Small pulled her aside.

“How’s your mom?” he asked Jessica. “Do she and your dad still go to the shows?”

Small, you see, was not only one of Jessica’s best friends in college, but also a member of the University Singers, UMaine’s 80-member chorale group. So was Kelly Caufield, who now performs throughout southern Maine and beyond, and Emily Cain of Orono, whom you might recognize as the Democratic minority leader in the Maine House of Representatives.

“They all sang,” Jessica said. “I was the groupie.”

So were Tom and Maddie. Whenever Jessica called to say her three friends were performing, her parents would climb in the car and drive all the way to Orono just to take in the show.

Since Jessica and Company graduated in 2002, Tom and Maddie have continued to follow the three singers’ careers, cheering them on from front-and-center seats wherever and whenever they perform.

Which brings us back to Small, who grew up in Windham, now works as a career counselor at Emerson College in Boston and still connects onstage whenever possible with old choir mates Cain and Caufield.

“We don’t know what to do to help you,” Small told Jessica that day in November. “So this is what we’d like to do.”

Introducing “Music for Maddie.”

At 4 p.m. Sunday at the First Congregational Church on Cottage Road in South Portland, Cain, Caufield and Small will team up with pianist Nicholas Place for an hour or two of show tunes, contemporary songs and whatever else might, as Small put it this week, “give all of us something fun and light to look forward to in the middle of winter.”

Tickets cost $10 — every penny of which will go to the ALS Association Northern New England Chapter. Donations can also be made through the organization’s website or, as many have already done, by stopping in to Shoppers True Value Hardware and dropping off a check.

“It’s amazing,” Tom said. “Some of the checks are for $20, some are for $100.”

As he spoke, Maddie nodded and raised a tissue to her eyes to wipe away her tears.

Cain, whom Tom calls “my one and only favorite Democrat — she’ll be Maine’s first female governor and you can quote me on that,” has spent recent days handing out fliers for the show all over the State House.

“I did not print it on State House copy paper,” she said with a pre-emptive chuckle Thursday. “I went to Staples myself and paid for the photocopies and personally distributed them to the House and Senate.”

The response amazed her. More than a few fellow lawmakers found themselves wistfully recalling the late House Clerk Joseph Mayo, who died from ALS in 2002.

Others talked of someone else they knew with the disease — according to Nell Davies, Maine’s patient services coordinator for ALS Northern New England, 50 to 100 Mainers struggle with ALS at any given time.

“It’s familiar to too many people in Maine,” Cain said. “And it’s so frustrating when you want to do something and there really isn’t much that can be done.”

The Rev. John McCall, senior minister at the First Congregational Church, knows the feeling.

In addition to visiting the hardware store “virtually every day” since he bought his old home in South Portland in 1989, McCall officiated at the wedding of Tom and Maddie’s son, Mike, and baptized Jessica’s 14-month-old son, Carter.

Hosting the show at no charge, McCall said, is the least he can do to help bring a little more music, while there’s still time, to Maddie’s ever-attentive ears.

“They’re all such wonderful, wonderful people,” McCall said. “We can’t fix this, but we can remind them they’re not walking alone. That’s the kind of community we want to be.”

Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:

bnemitz@mainetoday.com