Editor’s note: This Program Model is part of a series highlighting the work of the Lifetime Arts Affiliates, a cohort of 20 libraries that has been working with Lifetime Arts Inc. to launch professionally conducted arts education for older adults. For more information, check out Lifetime Arts' Creative Aging Toolkit for Public Libraries, a free online resource for librarians that provides information about creative aging research, best practices and practical advice for planning and implementing creative aging programs.
The Memoir Showcase Workshop was an eight-week series of sequential classes at the San Diego Public Library's Pacific Beach/Taylor Branch in which older adults learned about the craft of writing so they could transform the stories of their lives into written memoir pieces. The program culminated in a special finale event where each participant performed a brief theatre piece, dramatizing what they’d written.
At San Diego Public Library, adults aged 55 and older tackled sensitive subjects in writing and then performed the pieces on stage.