Anderson Senior Follies - 1
Anderson Senior Follies performer Diana McMahan, director Mary Nickles, and performer Jim Wentink. This year’s Follies performance, “The Last Resort,” takes the stage March 12–15, 2026, at Anderson University’s Henderson Auditorium.
Photos by Matthew Franklin Carter
The dance instructor walks the group through the steps, explaining terms as she goes. For sugar, you twist your legs a little. For step-ball-change, pretend you’re a rocking chair. Behind her, senior adults stand in two rows, watching closely, trying to keep up.
“I’m looking at your feet,” 78-year-old Jim Wentink tells the instructor. He points to his own. “That’s not happening here.”
The instructor wants to see everyone’s jazz hands, and Wentink throws up his arms. Stiff, like a criminal surrendering to the cops. Except for one difference. The smile on Wentink’s face says he’s having the time of his life.
On an August morning, Wentink is one of 20 hopefuls vying for a spot in the Anderson Senior Follies, an Upstate performing arts group for adults 55 and over.
Many onstage today have followed the Follies for years. They attended a past performance or have friends who, after a little cajoling, convinced them to give it a try. Some are here because tragedy—an illness or the loss of a spouse—reminded them that life is short. Auditioning “is a bucket-list item for me,” says 66-year-old breast cancer survivor Diana McMahan.
She’s not sure she’ll make the cut, though. Wentink doesn’t have high hopes either. Afterward, in the auditorium lobby, they point out their deficiencies. Where they messed up. What they could have done better.
They don’t yet know that they need more than talent to win a spot in the Follies. Just as with talent, some people are born with this special something, while others have to work hard to develop it.
A safe place to shine
The Follies debuted in 1989 as an outreach of Anderson University and has since grown into a yearly production anticipated by thousands of loyal fans. In March, during the show’s four-day run, the parking lot outside Henderson Auditorium fills with branded buses featuring the names of area churches and assisted living facilities.
For the many seniors in the audience, what they see onstage is often “counter to what they thought of themselves and to what they thought seniors are capable of doing,” said David Larson, dean of the South Carolina School of the Arts at Anderson University and founder of the Follies. “That's the power of this thing.”
When director Mary Nickles took the helm of the Follies in 2019, she expected to run the group like she had other shows. This should be the best of the best, she thought. As her first season progressed, though, she realized the best sometimes takes a while to emerge. What if the group wasn’t just a place where the best came to shine? What if it were a ministry—a place where seniors came to discover what their best could be?
With this new goal in mind, Nickles adjusted her approach. Now, before auditions, she chats with each person and asks questions. How did you find out about the Follies? What are you interested in?
These conversations reveal attitude, which, for Nickles, matters just as much as talent.
Finding your rhythm
“Even if your heart is happy, if your face is not, it brings us all down,” Nickles reminds the cast every year during the season kickoff meeting.
On a misty September day, Wentink and McMahan sit with their new castmates in a wide circle of padded chairs inside the church social hall that serves as a rehearsal space.
They laugh. They smile. They have no idea what’s coming.
Even in a group with more than 50 members, it’s hard to hide from Nickles. Sooner or later, she’ll come for your comfort zone.
“I think Mary forgets we’re senior citizens sometimes,” says 73-year-old Follies veteran Beverly Robinson. When she joined the Follies, she never dreamed she could handle a speaking role or a tap number. But Nickles believed Robinson could. So Robinson did.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” McMahan says after receiving her assignments. The line dance she’s in should be a piece of cake. But the costumes she’ll be working on? It’s the most complex project she’s tackled in her 45 years as a seamstress. Even still, her happy heart radiates from her face.
Wentink is a clarinetist who doesn’t consider himself a singer. But Nickles sees his potential, so Wentink’s up for learning something new.
Nickles never asks anyone if they think they can handle an assignment before she gives it to them. She assumes. Her “bull-in-a-china-shop” approach to casting may get some headshaking at first, but this group has enough history with Nickles to know she’s usually right.
At the end of each season, when the crew strikes the stage, they sweep up the shattered bits and pieces of the cast’s self-imposed limits, too. When the final curtain falls on this performance, McMahan, Wentink and the rest of the newbies will understand what seasoned Follies members already know:
Growth, at any age, is just like dancing. One step. Then another.
Even if it feels awkward at first, keep going. With the right attitude, finding the rhythm can be part of the fun.
Get there
This year’s Follies performance, “The Last Resort,” will take the stage March 12–15, 2026, at Anderson University’s Henderson Auditorium. For tickets, visit andersonseniorfollies.org.