Are you an older woman beginning your acting career or returning to acting?
It may feel daunting competing in a crowded market with younger actors who may already have years of experience.
But don’t be deterred. Your age and your life experience may be your superpower.
Take June Squibb, who is still working at the age of 96 – returning to the Broadway stage this year to star in Marjorie Prime, a sci-fi about an 85-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease, who uses a holographic AI service (“Prime”) to interact with a younger version of her deceased husband.
Squibb also starred in the 2025 movie Eleanor the Great, directed by Scarlett Johansson, and in the 2024 comedy Thelma.
‘There’s only one June Squibb,’ Johansson said, in a 2025 Collider interview.
But is there?
The women who use my monologues for acting auditions suggest otherwise.
Take Susan Brekenfled, 65, of Julian, California, who started acting in October 2024 after she retired.
‘I had never done any theater and wanted to do something scary,’ Susan said.
For her first audition, she tried my monologue Quite A Sensation, about an older woman who is an anti-graffiti warrior, and who makes a graffiti statement of her own with the slogan ‘Old lives matter’.
‘I think the town wasn’t quite sure what to do with this gray-haired lady carrying on (very enthusiastically) about how “old lives matter,” Susan said. ‘But I sure did get that part! (Undertaker Drudge in A Christmas Carol).
Launched
‘Thanks to that monologue, I was launched and in love with the theater world.’
The following April, Sudan used another monologue, The World In My Hands, to land the part of Cherry Bourdel, the French-accented lady friend of Jane in the musical Paint Your Wagon.
And in March this year, when she auditioned with the The Tidy Grave, about a grieving wife, she had the director/producer and camera man all weeping.
Then there’s Evelyn Davis, in Auckland, New Zealand, who started her acting career at 75.
‘I belong to a drama class…discovered I’m quite good at acting….and bounced on through to Level Three,’ Evelyn wrote. “Quite empowering and good for my confidence….I’m.75…..last night was our last session for the term and I chose to do a monologue and used your one called A Confession.
‘It was interesting to do because so many of the scenes people choose to work on are so dramatic and over the top and almost invite over emoting. Yours was different because on one level it’s quite mundane and day to day…or something…so I knew all the lines but I really didn’t know how I would feel, or how they would come out….I just trusted I would find it in the process of being in the character. And I did.
‘…it was amazing to allow the emotions to rise and ebb and flow….there was love….loss…longing… defiance…guilt… regret… awkwardness….anger…vulnerability….it was weird to know my lines and yet not have any plan or idea about how I expected to feel….strange to just trust that I would find out about her as I went through the lines….and so I got to be surprised and unexpectedly moved by the character’s emotional journey.’
The same goes for Lisa Stark, in Burbank, California, who returned to acting this year after a 50-year hiatus, using Job Description for auditions for indie movies in Backstage.
Beginnings – not endings
The point is not that these newbies are equivalent in talent or experience to June Squibb – although one day they might be. The point is that, like Squibb, they are discovering that ageing can be about beginnings, not just endings.’
So, if you’re an older woman thinking about trying acting, be encouraged and inspired. Use your age, your rich life experiences, and the courage that has got you this far in life, to have a go.
When she was asked about ageism in show business at the 2014 Golden Globe Awards , Squibb was determinedly optimistic: “Well, it’s like anything else. I always feel, rules are meant to be broken.”
Turns out she was right.