DIXON — There’s something to be said for young performers just starting out, their raw talent and rough edges bringing a certain excitement to the stage.

But performers with some seniority bring a lot to the stage, too: Talent honed by time, an enthusiasm for entertaining and a passion for performing … and maybe even a desire to prove to people: We’ve still got it.

And got it they do, in a new theater group in Dixon, where its members hope talents that have aged like a fine wine will be the toast of town.

Dixon Stage Left recently put out a casting call for a new group that it started for performers 55 and older, and local performers answered the call. Stage Left’s co-interim executive director Jimmy Ferraro is in charge of the senior theater group, and he brings a long career on Broadway and regional theater with him, a resumé that’s been a good fit for the group’s goal of showcasing seniors’ talents.

“We have many, many years of talent here,” said Ferraro, who also is Stage Left’s creative director. “Everyone has different backgrounds, and the accumulation of talent is going to be amazing. If you took all of the years that we spent with our talent and showcasing it, together it’s quite a ‘Lollapalooza’ of talent.”

The troupe’s first performance – “We Still Got It!” – took place Oct. 26 at The Next Picture Show in downtown Dixon, with future performances being planned, Ferraro said. The afternoon of variety entertainment included singing, comedy skits, improvisation with audience participation, and other acts that proved, as the show’s slogan said: “Laughter never gets old.”

Ferraro said he decided to make the group’s first act a variety show in order to utilize the troupe’s talents, as opposed to assigning them specific roles in established performances. This allowed the performers, some of whom hadn’t performed in years and some who were new to the stage, to feel more comfortable, while also giving Ferraro and his production crew an idea of where their talents could be best be utilized.

While “junior” versions of plays and musicals — condensed and kid-friendly adaptations — have become common in smaller performance venues like Dixon’s, “senior” versions are still relatively new. The senior theater model brings versions adapted for older generations by utilizing minimal logistics. Ferraro, who has spent 51 years in professional performing arts and joined Stage Left in 2024, learned about senior theater through Music Theater International, a publishing company for plays.

“They had just come out with senior versions of musicals; they’re cut down and adapted strictly for seniors,” Ferraro said. “That really inspired me to think, ‘Why don’t we have a senior theater company?’ I thought it would be wonderful to have that as part of our programming at Stage Left, and here we are. It’s very exciting.”

Having a place where seniors can bond and share their wealth of experience has been a confidence booster for the performers, helping them dust off some talents they may not have used in awhile and giving them a chance to shine.

Christine Tremayne has performed in professional murder mysteries, and once sang at The Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. A graduate of Barat College in Lake Forest, Tremayne also has performed monologues from the female version of “The Odd Couple,” and dug out one of them to use to audition for the senior theater. She heard about the group after attending a couple of Ferraro-directed murder mysteries at Dixon Stage Left.

Tremayne performed her “Odd Couple” monologue and also sang Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” for “We Still Got It!”

“I thought, ‘This looks like a fantastic idea,’” Tremayne said. “It’s not something that’s done regularly, and it involves a whole other part of the population that’s often forgotten about, and shouldn’t be. It’s something that I very much, as an older actress who hasn’t been on stage in a lot of years now, was very, very interested in. I came, prepared my songs, got my monologue — and boom! I’m very excited.”

Mary Carlson’s voice once was familiar to radio listeners in the Sauk Valley, but not in the performing arts. For 25 years, Carlson reported and anchored news reports on WSDR, WSSQ and WZZT in Sterling and also was news director for the stations. Her daughter Holly is a frequent Stage Left performer, and she convinced her mother to take her talents to the stage, starting with a couple of Stage Left’s readers theater performances.

“Last year, she encouraged me to audition for the readers theater that they did, and so I did that,” Carlson said. “Then when this came along, she was like, ‘You got to do this, too.’ I decided to try it, and having spent almost 25 years working at WSDR, I consider myself to be a pretty good storyteller and wrote my own monologue for auditions. Maybe I’ll do stand-up? A therapist said it would be good for me.”

Mardi Huffstutler’s performance experience centers on singing, but she’s also performed in theater roles from time to time. In addition to performing on her own, Huffstutler has helped students fine-tune their voices for performances as a private coach for more than 40 years. Singing is her passion, having performed with the nationally renowned Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus as a child and recorded a contemporary Christian music album, “My Best Friend,” in 1998.

Huffstutler is currently a vocal music instructor and director at Woodlawn Arts Academy in Sterling, and for “We Still Got It,” she sang “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” from “The Sound of Music” and “Defying Gravity,” from “Wicked.”

“I got an email from Jimmy and I thought it was an intriguing idea,” Huffstutler said. “I love to sing, and if you ask anyone, they’ll tell you that is what my passion in life is. I have such a passion for it and I love to get up on stage and do my thing. My mother swears I came out of the womb singing.”

The creation of the senior theater also gave some of the older members of Stage Left’s staff and management a chance to take their talents to the stage.

Karen Kaufman is Dixon Stage Left’s volunteer coordinator, and has directed musical productions at Dixon High School for two decades. She also grew up performing in high school and college, and has taken part in various dinner theater plays as well. She performed a comedy skit and sang Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” during “We Still Got It!”

“I’m very excited about it,” Kaufman said. “Especially with it being something someone my age can do, and have fun.”

Alan Clemens is president of Dixon Stage Left’s board of directors. While he never had a professional background or training in theater, he studied it in college and has been in a couple of stage performances. He also pitched in with a couple of songs during “We Still Got It!” and sees the senior theater as being another way Dixon’s presence as a fine arts community can grow, he said.

“I was interested in not only the opportunity for seniors to get involved, but also the resurgence of other elements of variety theater and community theater here in town,” Clemens said. “The community’s really got a very rich agenda for traveling productions and some stage productions, but variety shows and homespun kind of showcases and things like that are few and far between.”

Rounding out the cast of “We Still Got It!” were Jill Marcinec, Stephen Osborne, Perry Paliga and Ed Paneque. Ben Lightner, Stage Left’s co-interim executive director, served as the show’s technical director and Ashlynn Whaley was its production stage manager.

Even though some of the cast hadn’t tread the boards for a while, once they hit the stage again, it was just like old times.

“It was very much like riding a bicycle, said Tremayne, who last performed on stage 22 years ago. “I know everyone here can relate, when you haven’t done a monologue in years and all of a sudden it starts to come out of some part of your brain, it all comes back.”

For members, the group has been an opportunity for them to let their talents take a starring role again, proving that age can expand, not limit, what a person can do.

“They bring a wealth of experience and knowledge,” Ferraro said. “They’ve lived life and are bringing new life to whatever they’re doing. What’s marvelous about a senior theater company, to me, is that we can have an 80-year-old singing [I am] ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen.’ The expanse of material is endless for us.”

Dixon Stage Left was founded in 2014 by Timothy Boles as a semiprofessional theater. The theater currently is renovating its new home at 105 S. Peoria Avenue, and it recently procured a Prairie Brome Solar grant to aid in renovation costs. With both the theater, and members of the senior theater group, experiencing a second act, the future of the fine arts in Dixon is full of possibilities.

“With the senior theater group, we’re the only ones in the Sauk Valley to start this, and it’s pretty exciting,” Ferraro said. “It’s a lot of diverse talents which will make for a wide variety of entertainment.”

Find Dixon Stage Left on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, go to dixonstageleft.org, email info@dixonstageleft.org or call 815-440-2999 to learn more about its senior theater production and show information.