Stagebridge

Background on Stagebridge

Stagebridge, founded in 1978, describes its mission as to enrich and transform the lives of older adults and their surrounding communities through the performing arts. The company attempts to remove social stigma associated with aging and disprove the idea that seniors cannot contribute to society by demonstrating through theater how older citizens can improve our culture. Never Too Late, Stagebridge’s longest running show, is one way they accomplish their goal, as the play breaks down stereotypes about what it means to be old and showcases older actors, singers, and dancers in funny but wise skits and songs.

Stuart Kandell was a young theater teacher who worked at a senior center through the East Bay Center of Performing Arts before he founded and began directing the “College Avenue Players” at the College Avenue Adult Activity Center in Oakland, Calif. What began as a drama class of five women in their 70s soon became an up-and-coming theater company which by 1985 had twenty core members between the ages of 50 and 85. Playwright Linda Spector was hired in 1980 (and named Co-Director in 1981) to write original plays for the Players that featured positive roles for older actors and addressed themes including media stereotypes of older people, the problems of crime and the elderly, and work and identity. In 1989, the company changed its name to Stagebridge, to more accurately reflect their mission of bridging the generations, and moved to the First Congregational Church in downtown Oakland, which Stagebridge still calls home.

An innovator in the field of creative aging, Kandell received his doctorate in Intergenerational Studies from the Union Institute in 1996. Though he stepped down from Stagebridge in 2013, Kandell continues the work he began so many years ago, traveling around the world speaking, training artists, and helping governments and organizations develop creative aging programs. As for the organization Kandell established, Stagebridge has been honored as the winner of the 2013 MetLife Foundation Creative Aging Award and the 2009 American Society on Aging MetLife MindAlert Award. Stagebridge’s work has also been featured on ABC‐TV, CNN, and National Public Radio, in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Modern Maturity, Oakland Magazine, and Storytelling Magazine, and at national and regional conferences.

Now known as the nation’s oldest senior theater company, Stagebridge is regarded as a leader in the field of healthy aging. The company currently offers programs that span from storytelling visits to classrooms through the Storybridge Speaking and Listening Program, to the Performing Arts Institute (PAI) which offers training and classes in acting, storytelling, musical theater, and improv.