Since 2014, I have led the internationally recognised and multi-award winning Elders Company at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, developing my practice of creating theatre with older people.
In 2014, the Royal Exchange Theatre invited me to establish an Elders Company. Since then the Company has grown from a ten-week pilot with 25 people to a regular programme promoting creativity into later life and challenging stereotypes of ageing. My role has been to evolve and build the programme of activity alongside the participants as well as make and produce innovative artistic outcomes.
With a regular public access programme – Elders Mondays, a new Elders Company recruited each year and a growing number of Elders Graduates the programme regularly involves over 100 people. The Elders Leaders programme develops the skills and agency of graduates of the Company.
In 2020, Covid-19 challenged us to work in new ways, including developing an innovative creative phone service called We’ll Be in Touch and making a film A Funny Thing Happening in Isolation.
In 2022, I developed the Dream Project to address the under-representation of certain communities within our regular work. The first Dream Project involved African and African Caribbean older people, and in 2023, we worked with older East Asian people. The impact of the Dream Project is an increase in global majority older people taking part at the Royal Exchange Theatre from 0% in the 2018/19 Elders Company and Elders Leaders to 20% global majority people in the 2022/23 Elders Company and Elders Leaders. There is still more work to do but it’s a great start.
In 2023, The Elders Dream Project won Fantastic Families Best Age-Friendly Outreach Award and The Elders was also nominated in 2021.
In 2023, I wrote the chapter Collaborating with Elders for the online toolkit Disrupt: Tools for sharing power developed by Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Barbican.
In 2022, I was nominated for a Manchester Culture Award for my work with The Elders.
In 2021, I was listed in The Stage 100 for my work with the Elders Company during the Covid 19 crisis.
In 2021, the Elders Graduates won the Learning Group Award at Manchester’s inaugural Adult Education and Skills Awards.
In 2019, British Council Korea invited me to Seoul to lead workshops with older people at Seoul Arts Center.
In 2018, I was invited on a study trip to Tokyo and Kyoto with the British Council Japan, The Baring Foundation and Arts Council England to both learn and share more about Creative Ageing. You can read my report here.
I 2018, I wrote an article for The Stage: Theatre should teach us to grow old creatively.
In the same year, the Elders Company was featured in the Guardian: A new way to stretch yourself .
Between 2015 and 2022 I was a Dementia Friends Champion creating over 200 Dementia Friends in sessions with a range of organisations including Greater Manchester Police, National Trust and the Royal Exchange Theatre. I also offered support and advice on 154 Collective’s Wrestling the Walrus at the Royal Exchange which included themes of dementia.
Between 2013 and 2018 I volunteered at The LGBT Foundation to lead Older & Bolder – a friendship, activity and support group for men over 50.
Andy Barry 