Working under the guidance of Theatre professor Yasmine Kandil, students explored how creative functions can make a difference in the lives of the elderly or their caregivers. Through a series of short workshops, seniors were able to reflect on their backgrounds, celebrate their identities and find community through active creativity; these workshops then culminated in a pair of student performances, each featuring a topic of importance to the seniors with whom they had worked.
Student Lauren Fisher facilitated a workshop surrounding “teenagehood” in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. “We wanted to compare the parallels of teenagers then versus teenagers now,” she explains. “We asked the seniors to remember how they felt when they were younger, and what adversities or external factors may have been in play — like economic hardships or family pressures. For those who were teens in the ’50s, there were things like the aftermath of WWII, the Cold War and clearly defined gender roles.”
One of the creative projects was to ask the seniors to draw a place where they felt safe as teens — their bedroom, say, or backyard. Another project involved the seniors offering advice to Fisher while she role-played a 2024 teenager.
“What was most valuable for me was having such open dialogue between such different generations,” says Fisher, who has no living grandparents. “I think a lot of seniors feel like they’re so separate from people today, so this was like involving them in a conversation with modern society. It was very cool because we got to learn from them while they learned from us. It was all very beneficial!”