OnStage Seniors

Originally founded in 2007, Onstage Seniors officially became a part of McCarter Theatre Center in 2014, joining a host of programs designed to educate and engage the community. This impactful program creates documentary theater performances that explore the stories of our local community. Our ensemble members — all over 55 — perform in theaters, libraries, schools, and senior centers generating delight, insight, and affirmation about senior memories and experiences.

Our current piece, In or Out: Stories of Belonging and Exclusion, available until January 2020, features stories performed by actors, based on real-life interviews. In or Out includes both humorous and moving accounts of the search for belonging, and the moments along the way when one feels rejected, excluded, accepted, or embraced.

OnStage can perform for your organization! Performances can be adapted to a variety of venues from community rooms to classrooms to theatres. The show is typically 60minutes in length including a post-show discussion with the audience . designed to foster conversation about the issues raised in the performance. For more information about how OnStage might work for your group or organization, contact contact us through our website by clicking here: www.onstageseniors.org/contact

We create original documentary scripts gathered from interviews ensemble members conduct with people in their communities. Each year, the ensemble chooses a different theme and holds story circles where people share stories related to that theme. These interviews are recorded, transcribed, and shaped into monologues and scenes about everything from dating over 65, to climbing to the top of a building in Greece, to having an epiphany in the grocery store, to making tough end-of-life decisions. We rehearse and perform our productions under the direction of Liz Green. Each performance is followed by a post-show discussion about the issues that are raised in the scripts. Our ensemble's year is divided into acting classes, script creation, and rehearsing our new projects. The OnStage theater experience is one that comes full circle. One voice leads another to speak, with new stories emerge. After the show, the audience shares stories that matter to them—and some end up in next year’s show!

OnStage Seniors is sponsored by: