Support For Parents of Estranged Adult Children

of a scene — it’s good to keep all that active,” she added. “My favorite role as a Geriactor was in SSFP – Seniors Searching For Partners. In my role, I’ve come to hear an activist lecture and she’s definitely searching for partners and I’m not searching for partners.” issues that parents of estranged children face.

“It’s kind of speed dating for seniors,” Bartalo summed up.

The troupe size makes it easy for people to be involved and busy, but Ryon also noted the reality of her partners.

“As we age, we have more doctors’ appointments. Sometimes people have conflicts. Sometimes they go on vacation. Sometimes they get a parttime job. Sometimes they’re active, then something happens and they’re less active for a while, then they come back,” she said.

Still, the Geriactors have performed at every Rochester Fringe Festival since the beginning and they’ll be back this summer.

Each production of the Geriactors is specifically tuned to the audience providing the $250 performance fee. The process of booking the troupe starts with a phone call or email to Gans (geriactors@gmail.com and 585533-1606).

Ryon said they’d like four weeks’ notice, but can work more quickly in certain cases. Sometimes organizations would like a longer glidepath while they apply for a grant. After that first phone call, Gans will visit the performance site to make sure it’s workable. And then the troupe will start to prepare.

Done With The Crying: Help and Healing for Mothers of Estranged Adult Children

In a gentle yet authoritative tone, and with exercises derived from her work as a life coach and her own estrangement, Sheri McGregor, M.A., helps parents come to terms with their adult child’s choices, and regain their health and happiness.

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“This has been a great privilege of my life, to lead this group of people because they are so excellent and so dedicated and I hate to see a person’s gifts go unused,” Ryon said. “We’ve had some members get increasingly frail, but as soon as they start to perform, the spirit comes out of them and just fills up the room — that’s just so thrilling for me to see.”

How to Contact the Geriactors

For more information about the Geriactors or to book a presentation, email geriactors@gmail.com or call 585-533-1606.

“There’s no running away from the unction,” she said, sitting at her dining room table, resplendent in a royal blue dress. “You have to yield to it.”

She’s tapping her finger on the table, quietly making her point. Then she’s pointing to whoever is listening.

“I was called into the ministry. I had an unction from God. The Holy Spirit gives you an unction and God speaks to you.”

For many who hear the call from on high, it’s a whisper, a tingling, a sudden realization that you’ve had your thinking turned completely around.

Ivy Caldwell, 58, clearly got the call.

She explained: “I had dreams of being in front of people. I can remember one Sunday our pastor, Bishop John Crocker, preached a message and it spoke directly to me: God was calling me to preach. There’s no running from the unction.

“I told Bishop Crocker that God was speaking to me in my dreams. I dreamed of being in front of people, speaking. He told me about a program in Yonkers where I could get my bachelor’s degree in theology. He said, ‘I’m going to get you signed up for that.”

That was years ago. Caldwell has since been just about everything in her Faith, Hope and Charity Worship Center in Rochester — teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, leading the praise and worship team, working as the cleaning overseer, teaching youth discipleship and standing in as Pastor Theresa Crocker’s armor-bearer.