Using theatre to educate, connect, and mentor families and artists in dementia and aging.
It started in a Black Box Theatre…
As children, founder’s Kate and Bryan Fassbender, along with their mother Susan, set out to assist our local community theatre stage their summer season. In the process, they discovered a new path to take their unique careers.
Growing up in a family of artists and appreciators of all kinds of art, our founders were exposed to not only the finished product, but also the process of creating art. One of those art forms was theatre. They witnessed first hand the way a play or musical could connect people, connect families, and inspire new ways of sharing the talents one has been given.
When Kate was in college, she took a human issues course in Educational Children’s Theatre. It left a lasting impression and taught her lessons she carries with her today. She has long dreamt of ways to use what she learned in that class to share stories of dementia, and that moment is now. Roping in her brother, Bryan, they set out to share their knowledge, their gifts, and their love of this art form as they help others lift the curtain on a subject often abandoned.
About Us
Sibling Founders on a Mission to Accompany Others
Our Why
A theatre company founded with the belief that this playful platform has the ability to spark careers, restore relationships, and shed light on the beauty and dignity of all human life. Theatre is a powerful tool. It helps us connect as a community. It educates in ways that are playful, creative, and long-lasting. It inspires and drives forward new stories that remind us what it means to live a flourishing life.
Finding the Key – Current Project
Let Us Enter The Secret Garden.
Raise your hand if you read The Secret Garden as a child. Raise the other hand if it left a mark on your life like no other story.
Mary Lenox has much to teach us about what it means to walk this dementia journey. Come and let us enter the garden. Let us use this classic story to create an intergenerational approach to a dementia care family.
Through this pilot project we will enter the secret garden as an intergenerational community to discover ways to live together on this dementia journey.
From The Secret Garden by Frances hodgson Burnett
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden”
Structure
Pillars of the program
Intergenerational
Coming together as families and as community to explore a single story that can help shape how we walk this dementia journey together.
Community
Uniting with local schools, artists, senior centers, families, and care organizations to create something new.
Storytelling
By studying this classic story we learn how to share our own stories. We invite Mary Lenox to be our guide on this journey.
Stages of the Program
PHase One
Memory Cafés
Gathering for Memory Cafés that explore the themes of The Secret Garden. Families are encourage to attend together.
PHase Two
Educational Theatre
Gathering to develop an educational theatre piece rooted in our findings from the Memory Cafés.
PHase Three
Performance and Play
Performing our piece for schools, senior centers, in partnership with local organizations.
PHase Four
Research and Replication
Throughout the process we will be documenting and surveying participants to understands its impact and help others replicate the work we did in their own community.
Where to next?
Read the Beloved Classic
Read, Listen, or even Watch the beloved classic. My favorite edition is the Tasha Tudor illustrated edition and the 1993 movie version.