Our first commissioned script

I met Ann Pugh when we selected her play, The Day They Kidnapped Blanche, for the New Plays for Mature Actors collection. Since then, she wrote The Christmas Coffee, which has become a popular script in our collection. So, when I had the idea to commission a play for volunteer recognition events, I turned to Ann.

We wanted a show that was a tribute to volunteers, that could be easily performed by novices who would probably read the script, be a 20 minute-long comedy with a majority of female characters, and be fun for both performers and the audience. Ann took the directions and in no time at all she had the first draft done. Now, Volunteering has its Moments has been edited, reviewed by a series of readers, and is available for staging. 

The play centers on a televised tribute to volunteers. Megs Abbott is a popular TV personality who is substituting for "Opal" on today's show. Her five guests (5 women or 4 women/1 man) are stellar volunteers. They present funny and quirky adventures, 'volunteering moments,' that had been submitted to the station from folks around the nation. The well-defined characters clash during the production but in the end, are brought together by the warm spirit of volunteering.

It's been delightful working one-on-one with a playwright in this, our first commissioned piece. Most importantly, Senior Theatre companies and organizations that use volunteers now have a theatrical tribute that's fun and easy to perform. We look forward to other commissioned plays. Let us know if you have an idea!

Bonnie Vorenberg

Senior Theatre Resource Center, President 

The Theatre and Aging Seminars bring great joy!

• A man in his late eighties, holding on to a walker to steady himself, stands tall and speaks to the audience about his dreams. A young woman, in her early twenties, dances up to him, gives him a hug, and twirls past a woman in her seventies, who reads a letter she has written about what it has meant to be a mother.
  
• A young woman communicates earnestly with a puppet of her beloved grandmother.
• An audience of mixed generations sits mesmerized as a middle-aged artist dressed in white and in bare feet dances through the various transitions of a woman's life-cycle. The dancer begins curled up on the floor, as an infant, and ends there at the end of her life.
  

Last year, the program attracted a wonderfully rich mix of different ages, backgrounds, and expectations. It included community education students, regular graduate students of various ages, an older energetic student who traveled from Utah with her laptop and stayed in an OSU dorm, and two undergraduates. Eight volunteer guest artists and members of the Howling at the Moon company completed the eclectic group.

The reasons why people signed up for the experience included:

• "To see if this is something to pursue as a second career,"
• "to help deal with my in-laws who have senior issues,"
• "I want to develop something about behavior to perform for older groups,"
• "I'd like to learn how to take oral histories,"
• "I...want to enable people to continue or start expressing their creativity in later years. People of mature years have lives, voices, energy, in spite of possibly limited resources, mobility, and exposure."
• "I love the honesty of seniors--I also work on Adult Abuse as a lawyer."

Woods' class will explore the history of the emerging senior theatre movement to the present, the application of studies in gerontology to the developing theory of senior theatre, and examine the growing literature of texts for seniors. Reilly's focus will be on learning a variety of practical methods for working with seniors to celebrate life experience, and using life writing, oral history, and improvisation and comedy to create original programs by seniors for seniors.

For details, contact woods.1@osu.edu, or joyr1@aol.com or call the Department of Theatre at 614-292-5821 and ask for Damian Bowerman.

Stocker is featured in this new book

Stocker Fontelieu is THE man on the New Orleans theatre scene. Stocker and several other notable theatre folks in the city will appear at a Senior Theatre session at the upcoming ATHE conference on July 26-29. You can not only meet Stocker, but you can get the book that's recently been released. Click here to get your copy of Stocker's book.

We have several Senior Theatre sessions at the conference. Including: 

• Working with Older Actors
• Senior Theatre in College and University Settings
• Mature Actors Impact on the New Orleans Theatre Scene
• What Playwrights Need to Know about Senior Theatre
• And a special performance by the Jewish Theatre of the South which was such a hit at the Senior Theatre Festival.
  

We also will have a delightful dinner out, just for us, and a Business Meeting to plan upcoming events for next year. Join us for a stimulating gathering!

Ann Smith's work was featured in a recent issue of US Airways magazine

Ann Smith is a classically trained dancer who makes movement easy and accessible for people of all ages, all body shapes, and sizes. She's been teaching for over 50 years and at age 79 she is her own best example of the benefits of her exercise style. She uses slow, continuous stretching to classical music. She's written books on the topic but her videos are what has made her a star!

Now, Ann is available for workshops to teach her style to others. The seminars are designed for the specific needs of each group. Her style is especially valuable to theatre people for stage presence and movement control. Ann will travel to you, teach what you need, and help bring dance/movement to your group.

Check out her website and the link to her recent national article. Most importantly, get on the Ann Smith daily routine. You'll feel so much better! 

Mt. Shasta Senior Theatre hits the boards with their first show--a sell out!

The Senior Theatre Troupe in Vancouver BC explored the panic of a Saskatchewan prairie town during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 and measures taken to keep the illness out of town.

The Sun Lakes Community Theatre staged Anything Goes and received great publicity.

The Mount Shasta Senior Theatre sold out their premier performance of These Are the Good Old Days. The show featured dance, readers theatre, music, poetry, storytelling, and a take-off on an old time radio show. The  artistic director is Joan Lucas, who attended the Senior Theatre Festival last fall in St. Louis.

The Young At Heart Senior Theater Group performed Thanks for the Memories, a USO-style show. Now, a revised production will be performed in area senior centers, hospitals, and talent shows.

Bifocals Theatre Project finished a few weeks of touring a 35-minute radio play version of Arsenic and Old Lace. 

Visual, healing and performing arts are on tap at the Strand Theatre during a three-day arts festival for seniors June 27 to 29.

Reunited is a comical, yet sensitive, romp down Memory Lane

If you need a longer show with plenty of action, consider Reunited:

• Full Length Comedy
• Eight Characters (all over 55)
• Six Women, Two Men 
• One Set - a living/dining area
• Contemporary Costumes

It's been 47 years and four sorority sisters are back for their every-decade get-together for a week of fun and frolic. Though they planned to spend time sunbathing, swimming, and playing lots of bridge games, the gathering doesn't go as they wanted. Love interferes, addictions arise, a long lost friend re-appears, and a deceased room-mate communicates from the "Other Side." After the conflict and the comedy, friendship prevails.

The show is a rollicking comedy with just enough pathos to make a fun, yet memorable, evening of theatre. The characters are clear and believable, the plot is eventful and the writing is smooth and strong. It's a story about how friendships help older adults both survive and reach their dreams.

"Reunited" keeps the audience in stitches--a director's dream. Lynn Rouyer, Director Pinewood Players, AZ