The Stray Kats Theatre Company will present the "Still Crazy After All These Years! New Play Festival" for two weekends.

Consisting of eight new one-act plays culled from more than 500 submissions, showing passionate, lively seniors whose lives have taken interesting new twists and turns, performances will be offered May 5-7 in Newtown and May 11-13 in Hamden.

Festival Co-Producer and New Haven resident Tom Coash, who has earned awards from The American Theatre Critics Association and The Kennedy Center, says there is a growing number of older actors, and fewer interesting roles for them to play.

"One of our goals for the festival," he said, "is to create exciting new roles for older actors that deal with more than the usual death, senility, and incontinence that you usually see on stage and screen."

The festival will open with a three performance run in the hometown of The Stray Kats Theatre Company, a professional, nonprofit company. Kate Katcher, artistic director of Stray Kats Theatre Company and co-producer of the festival, said she has "long been interested in finding and creating new work for older actors.

"We are living longer with greater quality of life than ever before," Ms Katcher added. "We are vibrant, active, traveling the world, starting new careers, and using our time to fulfill lifelong dreams. We should be celebrated!"

The festival aims to do just that with eight new one-act plays, written by a group of multi-award-winning playwrights — and senior citizens — including two by the playwright-producers.

"We're very excited with the high caliber of writing from playwrights around the country!" said Ms Katcher.

The parameters for submitting to the festival were that the plays be 15 minutes or less, not have been published, and that all the characters be over 55 years old.

The winning playwrights include Ron Burch of California, Joël Doty (Missouri), Brett Hursey (Virginia), Ellen Margolis (Oregon), Faye Sholiton (Ohio), and David Lee White (New Jersey).

The eight short plays include 18 roles for locally cast actors, all over 55 themselves.

The cast includes Maggi Heilweil and Don Striano of Newtown; Bob Ponturo and Nancy Ponturo of Redding; TJ Chilla, Kimberly Squires, and Allan Zeller of Milford; Patty Shea of New Haven; Eric Larson of Hamden; John Moran and Dave Gant of Bridgeport; and Stephanie Lloyd Ficarra of Fairfield.

Ms Squires, Mr Stroiano, and Mr Zeller will be appearing courtesy of Actors Equity.

The co-producers are hoping to make the festival an annual event, with new plays every year, and even a tour to senior centers around the region. The co-producers report "quite a bit of interest and tickets are going fast!"

Newtown performances will take place at Fraser Woods Montessori School, 173 South Main Street. Curtain will be Friday and Saturday, May 5-6, at 7:30 pm; and Sunday, May 7, at 2 pm.

The Hamden performances will take place at The Whitney Center (South Entrance), 200 Leeder Hill Road, Thursday through Saturday, May 11-13, at 7:30 pm.

Tickets are $25, and reservations are strongly suggested.

Tickets may be purchased online at straykatstheatrecompany.org. They may also be purchased in person at Queen Street Gifts & Treats, 5 Queen Street in Newtown.

For further information, contact Mr Coash at 203-645-5599 or thomascoash@sbcglobal.net or Ms Katcher at 203-514-2221 or info@straykatstheatrecompany.