Taught in the Act
Immersive theater
programs are just one
of the ways active adults
engage in the arts today.

MARISSA STERN | JE STAFF
ingo and knitting might be the first activities you think of when
“senior resident community” comes to mind.

And while those are popular hobbies (and for good reason, be-
cause bingo is fun), seniors are finding more ways to entertain them-
selves — sometimes, in the most literal sense of the word.

Arts and culture programs at resident communities are push-
ing those activities aside in order to allow the residents to par-
ticipate in programs they have always enjoyed, from art to writing
to theater.

Theater programs have taken on key roles in many senior com-
munities in the last few years.

Philly Senior Stage is the brainchild of Robb Hutter, a Toronto
native and past artistic director of Temple University’s intergener-
ational educational theatre program, The Full Circle Theatre.

It started in 2007 as a way of working with seniors through acting
classes to find their comfort zone, and then pull them out of it, as
Hutter described it.

Since its inception, Hutter and his team of educators and work-
shoppers have continued to share the program with more than 15
senior centers around the Philly area, bringing the love for perform-
ance with them.

One such place is Shannondell at Valley Forge, which was where
Philly Senior Stage got its start.

The center had completed a brand-new auditorium in 2005, and
Hutter learned that it was being used for hosting musicals and per-
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formance, but no one used the stage for theatrical performances by
the residents.

He had to change that.

He created an 8-week course, which evolved into developing
semiannual shows by the “The Shannondell Actors Studio” where
his “kids” strut their stuff through acting and drama classes.

The benefit of this program, which includes improvisation ex-
ercises, musical theater performances and more, is one that Hutter
notices every time he works with them.

“It breaks down barriers,” he said. “It accesses a level of intimacy
that many people — that by the time they’re in their 80s they’ve lost
that — with maybe another person or group.”
Hutter, 60, works with the seniors, or “geezers” as he affectionately
calls them — “They hate it,” he said, laughing — to come out of their
comfort zones through acting.

“My rule is to go into their comfort zone and then take them out
of it,” he said. “I stretch my actors. I take them to a place that’s further
or deeper than they thought they could or might want to go, and
they’re always grateful afterwards that I’ve taken them there.”
With the Jewish residents he works with, Hutter, who is Jewish
himself, noticed that there is a stronger affinity for the arts. They
love their subscriptions to the theater, he said, and the proximity to
these activities is part of the attraction to places like Shannondell.

With performing, they work with other people to access the inti-
macy Hutter described and, in the process, find a sense of belonging.

THE GOOD LIFE
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM