Actors Monica Horan and Tim Durkin sat down with host Chuck Nichols the morning after performing a workshop production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days in Evergreen, the memory care neighborhood at Arbor Terrace Exton, in what is believed to be the first staging of the play in a memory care setting anywhere.
Residents built the backdrop themselves, lining the horizon with tissue paper flowers in scorched earth tones. The play follows Winnie, a woman buried to her waist in sand who greets each day with lipstick, a small black bag, and relentless good cheer, while her husband Willie stays mostly out of sight behind her. That story landed differently in a memory care neighborhood, where the work of making an ordinary day out of difficult circumstances is not a metaphor.
Monica is not a stranger to Arbor Terrace Exton. Her mother lives here, and she talks openly about staying close from California, including a standing Thursday morning FaceTime call built into her mother's therapy schedule and the improv habit of saying "yes, and" to whatever the day brings. Longtime Everybody Loves Raymond fans will also want to stick around for the story behind the show's title. Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.
