Young At Heart Musical Theatre For Seniors Presents: Canada In Love @ The Guild - Interview - Mar 16/12

The Guild was filled up in anticipation for the performance of Canada In Love done by Young At Heart Musical Theatre For Seniors.  The show was a tribute to Canada’s love songs from all over the country.  It included traditional songs from the 1800s to songs by Gene MacLellan and The Rankins, to name a few.  Not only did the performance incorporate some amazing music, it also had a lot of humour attached to it, which was wonderful to be a part of!  This was their closing performance after five weeks of touring to various long term care facilities all over PEI, reaching over 1200 of the elderly in our communities.

After the show I was able to speak with the Artistic Director, Catherine O’Brien, about Young At Heart and her future plans for the organization.

1. Why did you get started with YAH?

- For one thing, I saw a need.    There’s the demographic on the island: there is an aging population and a lot of seniors living on the island independently with some assisted living or living in nursing homes, manors, and community care facilities.  A lot of them are out in remote areas and they don’t get a chance to get out and see theatre or any other cultural events.  Sometimes it’s just because of physical or financial constraints and I knew [Young At Heart] would be something of value that I wanted to bring here to PEI.  I knew it existed in Ontario and I worked with the company in Ontario as well.  I started YAH here with Hank Stinson; I can’t believe it’s been 7 years!

2. You had gone from 16 venues to 38 venues this year, how did that come to be?

-We started out calling around at first.  Once we started to tour and people started to get it and love the show, the word started to spread.  By the third year [organizations] were calling us and it started to build from there.  We’re still getting calls every year; I’d say we could be doing over 40 shows next time.



3. Are you planning on touring out of the province?

- We are, it’s certainly in the plans but right now it’s not in the budget so that’s the big thing.  It’s about finding funding and resources and finding the connections off-island.  I know [touring] would work beautifully and I don’t think there’s anything like this happening in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, so we’d love to do it.

4. What is your favourite production that you’ve done so far?

- Each new show is my favourite and I think that we certainly strive to bring the most professional quality shows that we can.  If we’re also improving and getting stronger at that then that’s great too.  I’m always looking for new and exciting shows to do, or write shows myself that I think would be attractive to the seniors.

5 .Do you have anything in the works for next year?

- Right now our biggest goal is fundraising.  We’re really in dire need of some money and core funding so I really have to start working on that because ideally I’d like to grow.  We can only do so many shows on the island but what I need to do now is to be able to provide more than one show a season.  That’s something they’ve been asking us for, that we can come at least twice a year.

6. If you could use three words to describe Young At Heart Musical Theatre for Seniors, what would they be?

- Quality.  Accessible.  Entertainment.

For more information, visit www.yahtheatre.com