With the prevalence of caregiving seemingly everywhere, including more and more on current DMV stages, VFP’s Community Care Roundtable will examine how the tools of art-making can offer new paradigms in addressing issues of social invisibility, neglect, bureaucratic dehumanization, and familial strife often experienced during the throes of caregiving.  The roundtable will be co-moderated by MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient and elder-justice advocate  Marie Therese Connolly (author of “The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life”) and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and recent caregiver David Shipler. The roundtable will feature an array of elder care experts in conversation with DC theatermakers Alex Levy, Artistic Director of 1st Stage, and performer Lisa Hodsoll from the 1st Stage production of The Waverly Gallery, as well as Sam Simon, creator and performer of Dementia Man which is being presented at the Phillips Collection in November, director Derek Goldman, and performer Raghad Makhlouf from the Mosaic Theater production of The Art of Care.  These experts will be in dialogue with the VFP Who Cares co-writing team. 

The Community Care Roundtable will be followed by the world-premiere production of Who Cares: ♥ The Caregiver Interview Project, running January 9 – February 2, 2025, and preceded by free workshop readings of the play on November 17 & 18, 2024 as part of National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. Who Cares is based on over 20 interviews with local colleagues, elder justice advocates, and close friends whose lives have been disrupted – but also transformed – by unexpected caretaking for loved ones contending with memory loss. Often funny, always intimate, and powerfully informed, Who Cares: ♥ The Caregiver Interview Project moves from church basement support group, to comedy club, to rockstar book event, revealing fault-lines within families, and bonds challenged and strengthened, forming newly generative communities of care.