By Jan Levine Thal, Co-founder of The Fabulous Crone Show

Community theater’s not-very-hidden little secret is that the roles for women older than 40 are far too rare. Women are often the backbone of these companies (as they are of many volunteer groups). They sell tickets and search for props; they raise money and even build sets. But when it comes to the cast, in general, men’s parts outnumber women’s, especially parts for women “of a certain age.”

It’s discouraging to arrive at an audition with a resume as long as your arm and hear the director yell “thank you” before you’ve opened your mouth. One woman with years of experience and good notices said she’d auditioned for four years without being cast. Many women simply stop going to auditions.

The dearth of parts isn’t the only problem. More than one older woman has been rejected for an older woman’s role in favor of the director’s girlfriend, Tiffany, who is 20. Somehow, a white wig gives Tiffany the depth and breadth of her mother or grandmother who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I’m not bitter.

Professional theater is worse. For example, in 71 years, only three women have won the Tony Award for Best Play: Frances Goodrich, coauthor (with her husband) of The Diary of Anne Frank (1956), Wendy Wasserstein for The Heidi Chronicles (1989), and Yasmina Reza for Art (1998). Eleven women have won the Pulitzer for Drama since 1918.

A little over a year ago I was complaining about the sad fate of aging artists to my friend, visual artist and performer, Wendy Fern Hutton. I listed all the remarkable talent in our town, Madison, Wisconsin — all the talented women competing for the handful of available performing roles. Her response was, “If there’s that much talent, let’s do our own show. Let’s do a crone show.” And the concept was born.

One of Wendy’s inspirations was her mentor, Madison actor Lois Nowicki, who performed until the year she died. She convinced Wendy that good performance knows no age and great performers don’t die, they just take extra curtain calls.

Still, we faced the Crone show with a certain trepidation. If we built it, would they come? Wendy and I called and emailed everyone we could think of and held an organizational meeting and then auditions. Come they did! With the help of scads of enthusiasts, we planned a variety show of women older than 40. After much discussion, with some participants objecting to using the word “crone” at all, we decided on the title, The Fabulous Crone Show: The Lives and Loves of Elder Women.

In February 2007, more than two dozen women acted, read poetry, sang, danced, showed film, and played music on the Crone Show stage. Most performed their own work but we also attracted actors to perform original work by local writers. Two participants were younger than 50 and three were in their 80s. One popular act was a Pilates demonstration by an amazingly agile woman of 75. Another was a monologue about growing up in the family of a holocaust survivor. Perhaps the biggest laughs came with a sketch about three aging circus performers, though it had stiff competition in the comedy arena. A series of short monologues using the motif of aprons tied the show together.

In addition to actors and singers with great experience, we attracted women whose very first time on stage was The Fabulous Crone Show. Some of the most compelling pieces were by brand-new writers or performers.

We kept our expenses low. For example, props and costumes were either borrowed or cobbled together. A few chairs, a table, a beautiful backdrop painted by Wendy, and we created the world of the crone.

The biggest expense for most community theater is rehearsal and performance space. Our success was partly because we stood on the shoulders of foremothers. We were fortunate to be accepted as an affiliate of the Madison Senior Center, and its resident theater company, Positive Aging Theatre (PAT). PAT had organized seniors performing their own work for ten years before the Crone Show and some of our performers were veterans of those shows. The Senior Center has a sister relationship with a nearby retirement complex, Meriter Retirement Services. Both places gave us free rehearsal and performance space and helped enormously with publicity to their constituents.

Nonetheless, the money we spent came out of our pockets and we were nervous that we wouldn’t get repaid. We estimated about 30 people would come to each show and if only half of them gave five dollars, we’d be stuck.

We promoted the show like crazy to the theater community, the women’s community, the senior community, and the press. We got mention in all three major local publications as well as several others. Our success in getting covered was partly because we started early and bombarded everyone with press releases and partly because the idea fired the imagination of some good reporters.

To our surprise and delight, nearly 500 people attended our three performances. From their donations great and small, we paid our expenses, hired a website developer, and put some money in the bank.

Without doubt, we’d hit a chord, found something people wanted. One actor who’s been in scores of plays over two decades said that some people she’d repeatedly invited to her shows saw her on stage for the first time at The Fabulous Crone Show.

Of course, there were wrinkles — and not just on our faces. Some people who originally committed to the show were unable to participate. Both Wendy and I had family crises in the middle of our rehearsal period. One woman had to skip the final show because her father went into the hospital. One respected performer, Kathie Rasmussen, died unexpectedly a few months after we closed. We became starkly aware that the particular challenges of our age group would find their way into our art, bidden or unbidden.

Moreover, our slogan from the beginning had been that we wanted to support the performers’ muses and not censor or limit. One piece with some sexually explicit material became terribly controversial — perhaps because of discomfort with sexuality, perhaps because of homophobia (it was one of three pieces by Madison’s lesbian improv & sketch comedy troupe, Flaming Dykasaurus or FD).

It wasn’t the only piece that came in for criticism. Another piece mentioned the word “masturbation.” Mind you, we should have known it would raise hackles — in 1994 Dr. Jocelyn Elders, the second woman appointed to the position of U.S. Surgeon General, lost her job as Surgeon General because she talked about masturbation. But after she said it in such a public forum, we thought it was OK to mention it in a piece about self-actualization. I think we’d make the same decision today.

In part because of some gentle pressure from our venues, we promised to have clearer rules for pieces submitted to the 2008 Fabulous Crone Show (Supercrones!). Our restrictions for performers are: no nudity, no swearing, and must be appropriate for an all-ages audience. FD has chosen not to perform in 2008. It’s sad — we still love them and their work. More broadly, we will miss their themes. Among the rich and varied experiences of women older than 50, we feel it is important to include work about the lives of lesbians; in 2007, we had very few pieces with that content.

Perhaps the aging of the population, especially of experienced and talented performers, has made the time ripe for variety shows of women older than 50. We encourage every community to do its own Crone Show! It’s fun! It’s gratifying! Our website, www.croneshow.com, is meant to help get people started and make suggestions about finding talent and, perhaps most important, finding money.

Woman or man, old or young, crones are in your life. Why not a crone show? Check out www.croneshow.com.

One, two, many crone shows!