Bradford theatre company Freedom Studios is calling for volunteer performers aged over 65 for its next production, aimed at challenging stereotypes about older people.

Called Home Sweet Home, the production will explore the experience of growing older, and the ageing process, and will feature a community cast working alongside professional actors.

The play will be staged in April next year. Performers aged over 65 are invited to an open event at the Design Exhange in Little Germany on Friday from 1.30pm to 4.30pm. Director Tom Wright will explain more about the project.

“We would like to meet older people from a range of backgrounds and physical abilities, who are interested in performing – be it acting, singing, dancing, or engaging audiences in conversation,” said Mr Wright.

“They don’t need specific experience or skills, just the desire to take part, and we will do the rest.”

The production – the result of collaboration with artists, scientists and older people – will challenge perceptions about ageing, looking beyond the label of “old age” that encompasses ten million people in the UK over 65 to explore individual human stories and experiences.

It tells the story of a group of people brought together through different circumstances to live in a home. T

he residents go on a journey of discovery, along the way meeting the ghost of a grandmother performing a Bollywood showstopper and a tightrope-walking manager fighting to stop the walls caving in.

The community company will meet one afternoon a week from the beginning of December until the end of February, 2014, and rehearsals will increase in March.

Freedom Studios, an Arts Council of England’s National Portfolio Organisation, is an intercultural theatre company with a mission to connect people and communities through telling stories.

The company is committed to putting people at the heart of its activities, especially those with limited opportunities to engage with the arts and whose voices are not often heard.

Anyone interested in being a part of Home Sweet Home is asked to contact Deborah Dickinson or Tom Wright on (01274) 730077.