Retirees are the stars of Philly Senior Stage

THE SHOW must go on, but Mattie Sullivan was worried she was losing her voice.

It was the day before the big premiere. Sullivan had to take the stage: Besides playing the ingenue's role in a vaudeville-inspired skit, she was scheduled to do a "tap and rap" routine that would showcase her dancing and singing skills.

She sighed. "Break a leg, I guess," she said.

Or, given this crowd, it may be break a hip. Sullivan is 92. The average age of her co-stars is about 89.

This is Philly Senior Stage, conducting theater workshops in about 20 retirement communities in the Philadelphia area. Founder Rob Hutter said that while his actors range in age from 70 to 96, they bring great energy to the stage, energy that then spills into their daily lives.

"This gets their adrenaline going and they get this great rapport with the audience," he said. "One woman, a self-described wallflower, continually says, 'Thank you so much. Now I stand up for myself. I voice my opinion.' "

Sullivan and her co-stars live in Simpson House, a senior home in Fairmount Park. When Hutter first approached Patty Gallagher, the development's director of residential activity, she said she thought the idea would never fly among her residents.

She's happy to admit she was completely wrong.

"They get so much laughter and togetherness out of it," she said. "They're great with supporting each other."

Now Hutter wants to expand Philly Senior Stage to include a theater school and a professional theater company for older adults.

"The value isn't so much artistic as psychological: the spiritual involvement of the participants," he said. "Performing gives them relaxation, rejuvenation and social connections."

Hutter said he's always been interested in where art and social action interact. Years ago, he went to an intergenerational dance performance and found tears running down his face. A seed was planted, he said.

"Watching the company was a seminal moment in my life," he said. "I was seeing old bodies doing things old bodies didn't do in my concept of being old. You were seeing people go beyond where you thought they could go. And you think, 'If they can go there, I can go there.' "

A native of Canada, Hutter, 54, moved to Philadelphia in 1990 and spent the next 12 years as the artistic director of Temple University's Full Circle Intergenerational Theatre. He left the job with the intention of going back to school and getting a degree to teach drama to youth.

Then he threw out his back playing tag as part of a relate-to-the-kids activity. He realized that maybe the younger generation was not for him.

"In rehab, I met all these great older people who had great stories and I thought, 'This makes so much sense. I should work with older adults,' " Hutter said.

His students say he made the right choice. They describe him as patient while pushing them to give their best.

"He tries hard to bring out of each of us what we don't know we have," said Salivia Tucker Sharpe-Wilkins, 93, who played piano for much of the recent show. "He's a director but also a social worker. He's something more. It's something special that he feels."

These can be challenging productions to stage: The actors' mobility limitations mean there generally can't be a lot of movement on stage. Memorization difficulties lead many performers to carry their scripts during performances. Stage directions are foreign to the untrained troupes.

But, Hutter said, that just means he has to go slower and break things down more carefully. When someone's struggling to flip a page, he knows now the trick is to fold the corners down. When his cast members need wheelchairs or walkers to get around, he adjusts a scene's action.

"We work with whatever the limitations are," Hutter said.

Hutter likes for the actors to wear costumes like wigs or hats to help them separate their acting selves from their real lives. It's like putting on a mask, he said, allowing them to open up.

During the final dress rehearsal at Simpson House, one of the leading men was upset. The hat he'd been given was not the same one he'd last rehearsed in. Hutter sighed, then sent an assistant out to his car to search for the proper headgear.

"Prima donnas like I never saw," he said, shaking his head.

The complainant, 86-year-old John Ricci, tried to rescind his gripe. Hutter shook him off.

"I know actors," Hutter said. "You need the right costume to get into character."

An actor. Ricci said he never wanted to be one, never thought he could be one, but now he is.

"And I like it," he said. "I wanted something to do."

More than 100 people - residents as well as outside friends and family - crowded into a Simpson House common room last month to see the final performance, a variety show built around the theme of growing older.

Armed with lyric sheets, the audience sang aloud to every song. They laughed at all the right moments and some of the jokes brought down the house.

"My birthday cake sags from the weight of all the candles," one performer said.

To which another quipped, "That's not the only thing that sags."

After the show, 93-year-old harmonica player Mary Glover enjoyed an ice cream cone with her daughter, Diane Kolb. Kolb said she's seen her mother and the other actors grow more confident with each performance.

"This gives them a way to express themselves," she said.

Charmaine Sullivan-Larke, whose nonagenarian mother performed flawlessly despite her fears of laryngitis, said the troupe allowed her mother to feel like part of society again.

"This brings her so much joy," she said. "This is just one way she embraces life."

Actor Kitty Edwards, 87, collected accolades from fans. She could not stop smiling.

"I'm a ham and he's given me a chance to be myself," she said of Hutter. "You know he loves what he's doing."