Reminiscence Theatre

Pam Schweitzer founded Age Exchange Theatre Trust in 1983. It was the first full-time professional theatre company to specialise in touring reminiscence theatre across the UK and Europe and Pam remained its Artistic Director until 2005. In 2000 she was awarded the MBE for services to Reminiscence and she continues to direct the European Reminiscence Network, lecturing, directing and training in reminiscence and related fields. She is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Greenwich.

?Sheds new light on complex human issues and the message is loud and clear: reminiscence and reminiscence theatre can make a profound improvement in real people's real lives.? ? from the Foreword by Glenda Jackson MP ?The vast scope of the work recounted in this book as well as the detailed guidance it provides will become an invaluable resource for anyone who wishes to mine the riches of reminiscence work and to transform the spoken word into tangible artistic forms.? ? Faith Gibson, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of Ulster Reminiscence Theatre is about seeing dramatic potential in real life stories. It takes verbatim memories as the basis for theatre scripts, using the experiences of older people as a source of therapeutic creativity. This book is a comprehensive guide to the nature, practice and therapeutic effects of reminiscence theatre. Drawing on examples from a range of real-life case studies, Pam Schweitzer provides practical advice on the process of taking an oral history, creating from it a written script and developing that into a dramatic production, on whatever scale. The book outlines five components of key significance that the form affords: artistic development through creativity; cultural development, by creating reminiscence theatre in multi-cultural contexts such as dual-language productions; educational development through the intergenerational sharing of memories; psycho-social development for older people by reliving and reshaping past experiences; and health care, by using reminiscence theatre as therapy for older people with dementia, for instance. This will be of great interest to social work professionals and carers of older people, arts therapypractitioners and students in these fields

Foreword by Glenda Jackson MP. Preface. Introduction by Faith Gibson. About this book. Background. Part 1. Reminiscence Theatre. Process and Product. 1. Setting Up a Reminiscence Theatre Company. 2. From Interviews to Verbatim Script. 3. Development of Verbatim Plays. 4. Reflecting a Multi-cultural Society. 5. Dramatising Jewish and Irish Elders' Memories. 6. A Sense of Time and Place. 7. Staging and Touring Reminiscence Theatre. Part 2. Participatory and Inter-generational Projects. 8. Theatrical Scenes Stimulating Audience Participation. 9. Reminiscence Theatre-in-Education Projects. 10. Reminiscence in a Youth Theatre Context. 11. Inter-generational Playmaking in Schools. Part 3. Older People Dramatising their Own Memories. 12. Older People Enacting their Own Memories. 13. Minority Ethnic Elders Make Theatre from their Lives. 14. Using Drama in Outreach Work and in Dementia Care. Conclusion. References. Index.