We recently featured Brendan Shelly and his company Ageless Arts, which provides opportunities in theatre for people over 50. Here, Sabina Westrup writes about her aim of providing middle-aged women with a voice.
Women over 40 can still be interesting, intriguing, sexy and fun
Here's what she has to say:
According to research, 70% of theatre tickets are bought by women, but those women don’t regularly see themselves represented on stage, especially older women. And when they do, it’s often the stereotypes that are portrayed: the lead’s mother or mother-in-law, the headmistress, or the nosey, annoying woman next door. As a female Writer/Performer I wanted to give middle-aged women more of a voice on stage. Women over 40 can still be interesting, intriguing, sexy and fun despite how they’re portrayed in the media.
I came up with the idea of Kara, Mickey and Pol Too (inspired by the catchy title of the play Rita, Sue and Bob Too) in January 2020. I had written the synopsis but then had the usual few weeks of procrastination and then yep, Covid happened. And then I got diagnosed with Breast Cancer, so the play suddenly became the last thing on my mind. But I never forgot it. It was then revived last year when I entered a competition for Writer/Performers and had to submit a video based on a play idea.
This little exercise brought it back to the forefront of my mind and even though I didn’t get anywhere with the competition, the wheels were set in motion again and I started to write a few pages; slowly but surely. Procrastination soon set in again (I have ADHD) until a moment of serendipity last October when an actress acquaintance (now a friend, and also middle-aged!) expressed her desire to create her own work and I found myself pitching the play to her. I asked her if she wanted to write it with me. She said she was happy to advise but not write, but I’m delighted to say that she unwittingly ended up writing the play with me.
It’s a comedy about 3 friends who have turned 50 and go back to Spain and relive the holiday of their youth. As actresses, we’ve been having great fun going back and forth playing the characters as middle-aged women (which we are) and then as their 18-year-old selves. It’s a challenge writing and producing your own show (learning lines seems to be the last thing on my mind!) but it’s very satisfying to know that I’m doing something to address the under-representation of women of a certain age in theatre. And thanks to the support of a brilliant local theatre the little idea I had at the start of 2020 when I had no idea of how the world was going to change, has become a reality.
