{"id":673,"date":"2010-07-14T08:37:06","date_gmt":"2010-07-14T15:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=673"},"modified":"2010-07-14T10:18:03","modified_gmt":"2010-07-14T17:18:03","slug":"wisdom-of-the-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=673","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom of the Ages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dearest Readers,<\/p>\n

Today I am going to do a play reading at a Seniors’ Residence in Westmount, the chi-chi Anglophone section of Montreal. The reading is part of a program sponsored by the Playwrights Guild of Canada<\/a> and the Canada Council for the Arts<\/a>, which allows community audiences access to playwrights and their work and provides the playwright with a decent honorarium. It’s a great gig.<\/p>\n

This particular venue is a place I hold very dear to my heart because I used to work there. Each week on a Monday night I would spend an hour with the residents reading a play. Actually, they would read the play and I would facilitate. As in, “Mildred, would you read Juliet? And Harold, would you now read Romeo?”<\/p>\n

It was a joy to listen to these elders read characters from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. I kept the position for over 2 years and it opened the door to another job I landed at a nursing home. For awhile I thought I might give up life in the theatre to serve the elderly. I was good at it and found it very fulfilling. Then I got a gig at Stratford<\/a>. That changed everything.<\/p>\n

This morning, as I was trying to choose what to read to the residents I was struck (not for the first time — I’ve had to select excerpts before for a similar gig) by the challenging nature of my work. I write about characters who have experienced trauma and are in the process of finding the Way Out. Maybe not the best subject matter for afternoon tea with the old folks.<\/p>\n

And yet “old folks” have lived a long time. They’ve seen a lot of things. My brain says, “Oh no, this will shock them,” but am I not underestimating their experience? At the same time I would like them to enjoy themselves. I don’t want the experience to be too<\/em> dark. So the passages I ended up choosing are both (somewhat) challenging and uplifting.<\/p>\n

What I remember most about spending time with the elderly is that they have a lot to teach me. I may be going in there to give them a reading but I’m pretty convinced I’m going to come out of there with a learning.<\/p>\n

Inspiring Message of the Day: <\/em><\/strong>When I look at an old person do I see the whole life or do I simply see the “old”? Today I will stay open to learning something from an elder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dearest Readers, Today I am going to do a play reading at a Seniors’ Residence in Westmount, the chi-chi Anglophone section of Montreal. The reading is part of a program sponsored by the Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts, which allows community audiences access to playwrights and their work and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[466,816,325,817,465],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada-council-for-the-arts","tag-inspiration","tag-inspiring-message-of-the-day","tag-motivation","tag-playwrights-guild-of-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":675,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions\/675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}