Just Another Stage

Jack Moe, sitting at a desk with a fedora slung back on his head like some Hollywood detective, leaned hard into a microphone and filled a voice mellowed by 82 years of use with all the film noir muscle he could.

"So everyone, adjust your radio dial, sit back and enjoy," he said, clutching a script in his fist. "This is WEZQ, 6251 on your radio dial."

Heroes, heroines and villains tramped to the microphone as a melodrama, "The Tribulations of Tabitha," unfolded.

Alice O'Keefe -- who is "89 and three quarters" and a mother of six -- danced a little soft-shoe number, fluttering a white top hat and cane. She steadied herself on the back of a chair just a moment before shooting a Rockette-like kick into the air.

Frances Groover, 82, sang:

Cadillacs and cataracts

And hearing aids and glasses,

Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,

Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,

These are a few of my favorite things!

Now in their 80s and 90s, they wrote the script, played the parts and sang the tunes. And although the old-fashioned production was not really created for broadcast, they even threw in some ads. But they were doing something seen as increasingly important for the elderly: engagement.

"The Antiques Radio Show" is just one of many ways that residents of the Vinson Hall retirement community in McLean have been keeping themselves busy. Some members of the cast started their day with a round of aquatic volleyball.