Senior theatre groups have grown in number from 78 in 1999 to over 400 in the past year, according to a recent article in Time magazine. Some of them do outreach to younger generations through oral histories of their lives, some keep vaudeville alive, and others like Bill Whitney Senior Players perform published plays and original works. Some groups memorize their lines, but scripts-in-hand theatre is becoming increasingly popular. Senior theatre groups are flexible enough to adapt to the physical challenges of some seniors, including movement problems and blindness.

What makes Bill Whitney's work unique is that he teaches his actors to create and inhabit a character-while his productions are script-in-hand, it is much more than reading lines. His actors are taught to always "be in character", reacting to the others when they themselves don't have lines.

The essence of Senior Theatre is people discovering that they're never too old to act and that they can play parts of people of almost any age. Time states, "Experts in health and aging agree that participation in the arts is a powerful antidote to the ravages of time."