AATE 2025 National Conference

Applied theatre seeks to promote dialogue and connection among people groups. One underserved population is older adults, including those living with physical and cognitive decline, and those living in long term care facilities. This workshop asks us to consider, what if older adults experiencing dementia and age-related disabilities reconnected with their creative abilities? What can we discover when undergraduate theatre students create collaborative theatre pieces with them? How can theatre create connections between residents in a long term care facility and young people? What might cross-generational original theatre contribute to our communities? In recent years various applied theatre models have emerged to serve older adults. This workshop will explore the Timeslips method, a collaborative creative storytelling method developed by MacArthur fellow and former theatre professor Anne Basting. Professor Norah Swiney discovered Timeslips during her training to become a drama therapist. She developed a program to bring undergraduate students together with older adults to devise theatre pieces through a series of collaborative storytelling workshops. The workshop series culminated in performances for the community in which the students enacted the original works they created together. In this experiential workshop, participants will receive a brief introduction to applied theatre and drama therapy interventions for older adult populations. Next, the presenter will lead a brief exploration of the current research in this area. Then the presenter will share experiences of implementing cross-generational theatre programming and offer lessons learned. Then participants will learn the Timeslips method of collaborative creative storytelling, and how to use it to devise original theatre pieces with artists living with memory loss and cognitive decline. The workshop will culminate with a devised piece from stories created by the group.