BECOMING WHO I WILL BE

THIS IS ME

Old age takes away from us what we have inherited
And gives us what we have earned. - Gerald Brenan

I have always had a need to communicate my thoughts to others. I began when I was ten years old, composing essays and poems sending them to magazines and newspapers. That writing eventually expanded into several published books. I have two degrees in education because I am compelled to teach others what I think I know. It is my way of sending my ideas out into other minds and testing their validity in the area of public discussion. That way, I can alter and adjust my own thinking and avoid getting stuck in one channel. These two needs dovetailed when I took to the stage to do comedy at the age of 71. The comedy soon branched out into storytelling and then cabaret. Sadly, my stories, which are a direct result of my writing and the truest observations I share, are my least attended shows. The comedy and the cabaret are sufficiently different to attract a fan base. My goals have changed as I have aged, but now that I am 77 years old, my goal is to produce compelling shows that break down the preconceptions that age is inept and incapable of creating quality entertainment that appeals to everyone of every era. Creativity is not unique to one person. It is in us all and doesn't stop until we do. Its appeal is universal and enduring. Mine has grown, changed and expanded over the years because I have never let life happen. I have lived it.

This year, I am putting up two shows at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
GRANNY’S GONE WILD is stand up comedy about being an old lady, laughing at the things people think that aging is and loving what I am right now. People often ask,”Why should I listen to jokes about being old?” and I say “Because I am your future….if you are lucky. And isn’t it better to no longer fear the process…because I revel in every wrinkle, every new thing I learn and new way I live. You will too when you get to where I am.” GRANNY’S GONE WILD is comedy at its worst with a touch of song guaranteed to destroy to your digestion. I have the dubious title of THE WORLD’S OLDEST COUGAR and I am on the prowl. I rap about age; I sing about it and I tell jokes about what it has done to me. My show is horrifying proof that even though your body parts drop to your ankles, they still can move with enough zest raise an eyebrow….but nothing else.

My late night show is a revival of AGING IS AMAZING, the show that made the headlines in the London Times in 2008 and won STAR OF THE BRIGHTON FESTIVAL in 2009. It was so well received in Edinburgh in 2008 that I decided to give people who have not seen it a chance to experience an old lady doing a strip tease that excites no one but my chiropractor. I am hoping people will want to indulge their funny bones with my silly songs and parodies. I want to make everyone in the audience need to grow old along with the bouncy, outrageous and delectable me, in a rollicking hour of nonsense.

I will be taking my shows to Dublin after Edinburgh and hope to get them “down under” as soon as I can afford airfare. In the fall I will also present them in the San Francisco Bay Area and try to get them before the rest of the United States before I am too old to romp around like a teen-ager showing off a body that should be kept under wraps.

I still believe in miracles, especially the ones I create myself.

The thing I am most proud of is that I have managed to write, stage and produce my several shows and bring them from San Francisco to Fresno and Marin, across the ocean to Edinburgh and then to London, Brighton and Rome while living on a tiny pension, without any help from anyone. My work has been appreciated and even praised, with four and five star reviews and audiences that return every year to see what else I am up to. I have proven that you don’t need a lot of money to get noticed on a stage and you don’t need a whole team to make you a star. All you need is a dream and the determination to make that dream happen.

I like to be asked why I am doing this when other people my age are playing bingo and sitting in front of a television set, afraid to drive at night, bored by the limitations they think their body has given them and afraid to try something new. My answer is so simple: “Because I can. And because I can, I will.”

My ultimate goal is that my shows become recognized for what they are: a new definition of what aging can be for us all. I so hope that the glass walls I meet wherever I go because I am old and a woman (and believe me both are in operation far more than we believe) will dissolve and everyone my age or older would get out of his chair, put on his tap shoes or his motorcycle helmet his tutu or his body suit, whatever he fancies and dare to fly to the moon, reach for the stars and be more tomorrow than he is today.


Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright
The longer we live, and the reason of everything
Appears more clear. - Jean Paul Richter