Rosemount area council launches theater group for seniors

Inspired by strong evidence that it's beneficial, and also because it's fun, the Rosemount Area Arts Council is launching a theater group for seniors.

The council will be offering classes in a variety of stage arts to people 50 and over, with sessions to take place at the Steeple Center in Rosemount after construction of the building is completed sometime this fall.

An exploratory meeting, open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Robert Trail Library to discuss the direction of the new theater company.

The enterprise is part of a fast-growing trend, as theater groups for seniors have popped up all over the country over the past two decades. In 1997, there were 79; now there are more than 800, according to Bonnie Vorenberg, president of the ArtAge Senior Theatre Resource Center in Portland, Ore.

Vorenberg cites a variety of factors, including seniors being in better health and wanting ways to stay active and research that suggests participating in arts programs benefits aging adults.

"It really is a very, very good way for older adults to engage," said Jeanne Schwartz, a volunteer with the Rosemount Area Arts Council.

Another senior theater company, Passport Stages, started in Woodbury a couple of years ago and produced a comedy in 2014. It's currently working on establishing an alliance with Woodbury Community Theatre and hopes to put on another play soon.

In Rosemount, the arts council received a $10,000 Legacy grant through the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council to start the group. Schwartz said part of the inspiration came from the work of the late psychiatrist Dr. Gene Cohen, who headed centers on aging at the National Institute of Mental Health and at George Washington University. Cohen's research suggested that involvement in the arts provided seniors numerous benefits, such as better health and less injury.

"It just really sounded intriguing," Schwartz said, "like it could really make a difference."

According to volunteer Keith Reed, the arts council felt the new group would serve a need in the community, especially with two senior residences due to open soon: The Rosemount, adjacent to the Steeple Center, and a Dakota County Community Development Agency (CDA) project, to be located on Hwy. 3 south of 147th Street West.

Reed serves as the artistic director of the Front Porch Players, another Rosemount theater company that started in 2014. He was involved with the Riverside Theatre in Coon Rapids for many years and has run a company that does audience interactive dinner theater for 25 years.

He said, as actors age, they often face dwindling opportunities for roles. The group will create an outlet for actors facing this as well as provide an opportunity for those who haven't acted in many years or have no theater experience.

"As we get older, we have certain needs," said Stuart Kandell, who started Stagebridge in Oakland in 1978, the oldest senior theater company in the United States. "We have a need for challenge. We have a need to keep learning. We have a need to feel like we're giving back to other generations. We have a need for a social environment."

"Theater does all that," he said. "It provides a reason for people to get up in the morning when it's difficult to get up in the morning."

The social element is particularly important, Kandell said, as without the social atmosphere of a work environment and with contemporaries passing away, seniors can often face isolation. "The social element is huge, gigantic," he said. "The company for many people is an extended family."

Kandell also pointed to Cohen's work and other research on the arts and aging. People's brains are stimulated by the process of learning lines, working on a character and doing creative movement, he said.

"I've seen many people who've been at the very end of their life," Kandell said, "who've given the performance of their life, right at the end."

And perhaps the most important reason for senior theater? "It's just a fun thing to do," Reed said.

"They come there to have a good time. They've done work. It has to be fun and enjoyable," Kandell said.

The Rosemount group will have a performance in the spring, which, according to Reed, might be a 10-minute play festival so that more people can be involved.

They will also likely do script readings, which don't require memorization and are easier for those with limited mobility, as well as storytelling.

The group will offer involvement in all aspects of theater, including stage management and make-up.

"Drama is not all on stage," Reed said.

Schwartz said the grant funding will help pay for professional instructors, and they are currently seeking professionals to teach classes. She said the cost of the classes is yet to be determined.

Liz Rolfsmeier is a Twin Cities-based freelance writer. Her e-mail is lizannrolfsmeier@gmail.com.