BY JINELLE WILLIAMS
Courtesy of Jinelle Williams
In the last five years, the pandemic disrupted social interactions for virtually all Americans. Now several years out from the height of broad isolation, one in three senior citizens is still experiencing loneliness and isolation, according to a study from the National Poll on Healthy Aging (tinyurl.com/bdcdw2ky). As individuals and communities across the country are finding new ways to reconnect, in Laurel, there is a growing group of seniors who are reaching out in a fun way.
Every Friday, a group of seniors meet at the Selborne House of Laurel to talk about ways to share stories and poems with a larger audience.Charles Cylburn, a retired storyteller and stage actor, and Jessie Yates Ifill, an author, artist and songwriter, initiated a readers theater group, an art form that dates back to the early 1800s that uses scripts, vocal expressions and body language to tell a story.
“I have been doing this a long time ago in junior high school in Buffalo, New York, I was part of that group, and I did it again in D.C., doing the same thing we are doing here, telling stories to seniors,” Clyburn said.
The group enacts stories without costumes, props or special effects. Members hail from all different backgrounds, many without theater experience.
Besides entertaining others, members of the readers theater group say the weekly meetings have benefited their physical and mental well being, too.
“I recently had a stroke, and it also affected my speech,” Syliva van Laar said. “For my speech therapy, I was encouraged to talk out loud and read out loud, and with the reader’s theater, I could practice my speech and at the same time enjoy doing dramatic readings and entertain others.”
Since its start three months ago, the group has traveled to other communities to provide entertainment with their readings. They recently rehearsed “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly” as if it were a scene from a Broadway play.
“It keeps me busy, entertained and alive; I am still here, I am not dead yet, I am here,” Ifill said.
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For more information about the group, contact Charles Clyburn at readerstheatre@gmail.com,
