Interview with Pam Schweitzer: reminiscence in action

Pam Schweitzer is a writer, theatre director, lecturer, and trainer who has dedicated her career to reminiscence work for decades. After studying English at University of East Anglia and Drama at the University of Essex, she taught drama in South London and later worked as a Drama Advisory Teacher in Barking & Dagenham. Her early work with local communities and young people sparked an enduring interest in using lived experience and oral history as the basis for theatre. She wrote extensively on Theatre-in-Education, co-editing a directory of the movement, publishing anthologies of scripts and resources for schools, and reporting on the field for the Arts Council. In 1983, she founded Age Exchange Theatre Trust, the first professional company dedicated to reminiscence theatre, where she served as Artistic Director until 2005. The company toured across the UK and Europe, staging productions drawn from older people’s memories and establishing the pioneering Reminiscence Centre in Blackheath. She went on to found the European Reminiscence Network in 1993 and the older people’s theatre company Good Companions. Her later work has focused on cross-European projects such as Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today, which explores reminiscence in dementia care. Pam’s contributions have been widely recognised: she received an MBE in 2000 for services to reminiscence, was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts by the University of Greenwich in 2017, and is an Honorary Fellow of the same university. She continues to engage in international fora, advancing the practice of reminiscence theatre and its role in preserving social history.