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Ripe and Ready: Not Retiring Types
by Carolyn Mitchell
From Chattanooga to Charleston -- these players get rave reviews!
 THE SCENE CAPTURES A FAMILY REUNION DOMINATED BY SWEET GOSSIP AMONG THE WOMENFOLK. Uncle Jim is slyly guzzling booze as usual, they twitter. The preacher in the clan will grab the last piece of chicken, they predict, and the sun will melt the cherry Jell-O.
In another skit a wife copes with her newly-retired husband's interference. The unfettered former executive turns domestic czar, exhorting his harried wife to clear cobwebs, organize her spices, and, in her spare moments, prepare a triple-decker sandwich for his lunch.
Those vignettes and others presented by the Ripe and Ready Players ring true to the problems and pleasures of old age. And so they should. The scenes evolved from reminiscences, discussions and offhand remarks of Chattanooga Senior Neighbors.
"Everything in the show comes from something they said," according to Ripe and Ready director Suzanne Carter, who collected material for the show by talking to scores of people at Senior Neighbors branches around town. "I just fold it together."
Audiences ranging from theater professionals to first graders have been applauding the blend for the past decade. This past spring the senior troupe hit the Big Time with an engagement at the country's premiere arts celebration -- the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.
Ripe and Ready presented four performances in the Footlight Players Workshop on Queen Street, just a few doors from the theater where the acclaimed Irish National Company was performing Lady Windemere's Fan.
"Cast members from Lady Windemere were often in our audiences, as well as (Chicago's Comedy Club) Second City performers," Carter says. "They told us, 'Your show has the buzz. Its the one to see.'"
The Chattanooga thespians made such a splash, they have been booked in January at the Dock Street Theater, one of Charleston's most prestigious playhouses. And, for the first time, this spring they will take the stage at the Chattanooga Theatre Center.
The eight-member Ripe and Ready Players, who range in age from 62 to 95, were virtually all newcomers to "show business" before they volunteered for the theater project, which may be the first of its kind in the country.
Developed by Carter with support from Senior Neighbors Executive Director Cyndee Rice Sims, the Ripe and Ready production receives funding from Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga and Senior Neighbors -- and more-and-more frequently these days from the price of admission.
The show consists of some 25 vignettes, featuring songs with music composed by Carter and Iyrics drawn from the cast. "They feed it, and I control it," says Carter, who serves as pianist for the show.
The dialogue is a mix of improvisation and memorized lines. "They may say different things every time," Carter says, "but certain things are set so they can cue each other."
In fact, the players tell Carter their theatrics are a tonic for their aches and pains and a foil to memory loss.
"It's made us feel good about ourselves," says 74-year old Dorothy Haslerig. "We all realized we can learn something and retain it. And the audience reactions really get our juices flowing. We just love that. We all feel like we're doing something good by making people laugh."
Paul Sills, founder of Second City and a theater teacher in New York, caught Ripe and Ready at a Tennessee Theater Conference in Jackson. "He said he had come to Tennessee to get entertained," Carter recalls. "He said our show is just one step away from Broadway."
The Spoleto booking garnered Ripe and Ready a rave review from The Charleston Post and Courier. "Saturday Night Live could learn some funny routines from this fine troupe of enthusiastic, energetic and thoroughly entertaining senior citizens with a zest for living," the critic said.
The reviewer compared Bernie Sellman and Dick Gerken to Rowan and Martin of Laugh-in fame and called their skit about two cowboys in a nursing home "a show-stopper."
Hattie Bryant, the 95-year-old cast member, was another hit in Charleston. At the end of her number, "You're Never Too Old to Have Fun," she hoisted her cane and winked at the audience. "They went wild," Carter says.
"Don't miss this group," the Post and Courier advised its readers. "They will give you a new lease on life and someday you may want to start a troupe of your own."
Carter, who has written a guide for developing performing projects for older adults, says, "They're having a good time. Some of them worked two or three jobs. Now they can have some fun. And its nice that somebody cares who they are. Some of them never had their picture in the newspaper before."
The troupe, which tours year-round and has its own bus, also includes Bobbie Brooks Crow, Dorothy Jones, Lottie Jones, Sallie Morton and Billie Spencer.
Sellman credits the cast's professionalism to the director's talent, energy and patience. A graduate of the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Carter studied and performed opera, musical theatre and jazz for 10 years in New York City and Europe.
Later, she taught singing and musical theatre at Vancouver City College before joining the faculty at UTC. She continues to perform jazz in the Miller Plaza Nightfall series and other venues around the city.
On Carter's Senior Neighbors office wall is a plaque bearing an appreciation from her players "for making us actors and actresses."
Indeed, they've certainly learned that the show must go on. "While we were at Spoleto, Sallie Morton fell down and had to go to the emergency room," Sellman says. "But as soon as Suzanne arrived at the hospital, Sallie assured her that she wouldn't miss that nights performance. And she didn't!"
And Haslerig, who feared her dialysis treatments would prevent her from taking part in Spoleto, made the trip nonetheless after her doctor arranged for her to take treatments in Charleston.
"This production is about the fact that creativity doesn't die," says Carter. "It increases with age. These people are really heroic. They inspire me."
(Bookings for the Ripe and Ready Players may be made by calling Suzanne Carter at her Senior Neighbors office, 423-755-6100.)
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Carolyn Mitchell is a freelance writer and promotions manager for Parker-Hood Press.
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