Retiree Theater Troupe the Golden Guild Brings Westerns to Michigan Nursing Homes

More than 1 million Americans live in some form of assisted living. In Michigan, a volunteer theater troupe of retirees called the Golden Guild has spent more than two decades performing musical theater inside the retirement homes where many of them live out their days.

The group, based around Mount Pleasant, Michigan, was featured in NPR's "Here to Help" series in a report by AJ Jones of member station WCMU. The reporting centers on John McPeak, 82, a retired volunteer who anchors the troupe's logistics and performs in its shows.

Who is John McPeak?

McPeak volunteers extensively beyond the stage. "I volunteer here at the Center for the Arts. I volunteer at senior services in their Meals on Wheels and transportation programs. One of my dogs does a therapy dog program," he told WCMU. "So my day schedule is - pretty well revolves around volunteering."

He comes from a family of volunteers, according to the report. On performance days, he arrives an hour early at nursing homes to set up chairs and microphones, hauling the group's equipment cabinet himself.

Fellow Golden Guild member JoAnn Pobocik, who is also McPeak's partner and shares his home, described his role bluntly: "He's like the backbone to a lot of stuff. If it weren't for him, I don't know if we would be able to do this because he hauls all of our equipment every time we go out to perform, and he's just always there, ready to work."

What does the Golden Guild perform?

The troupe's current show draws on classic Western and folk material. Eight members, in cowboy hats and denim jackets, rehearsed sketches based on television Westerns including "Gunsmoke" and "Rawhide," and sang standards such as "Home on the Range."

The repertoire is a deliberate choice. McPeak explained: "For a lot of these people, they aren't attuned to anything more recent. If you think about it, the music that you remember the most, that means most to you is the music that you learned growing up."

At a recent nursing home performance, McPeak wore a coonskin hat to play Davy Crockett, delivering lines to the audience — "folks around here call that Sasquatch. That's the varmint we've been tracking" — and performed a solo of "I Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle." He admitted to pre-show nerves, joking that the early-arriving audience watches him "like I'm a frog specimen, and they're in biology class."

How do audiences respond?

Audience member Judy Nelson, who watched the performance at her nursing home, said she has attended the Golden Guild's shows for about five years. "I enjoyed it very much. It's been good. I've seen it now probably for five years," she said.

The troupe closed its set with the Roy Rogers standard "Happy Trails to You."

The Golden Guild model — retirees performing era-specific material for peers in care facilities — points to one concrete answer for how arts programming can reach the more than 1 million Americans in assisted living, at the cost of volunteer labor and a cabinet of equipment.