Event Details

Everything Granny tells you about aging? Forget it!

From early retirement right up to the pulling of the plug, 21st century seniors are partying like it’s 1969. Imagine: no work, no pregnancy, and a full array of Medicare-subsidized pharmaceuticals. It’s the boomer dream!

These boomers are partying at Pelican Roost, the very active retirement community that is home to the 18-different characters played by the show’s two actors. Pelican Roost is where 70-something is the new 20-something—only with looser skin.

Assisted Living: The Musical® is an 85-minute vaudeville-esque romp for everyone who is aging, and for those who hope to. The title came before the show. It happened in a parking lot one warm south Florida night in 2008 when a follower asked the topic of Compton & Bennett’s next show. They had no idea. Rick Compton saw someone loading a walker and said, “Maybe something on assisted living.” Betsy Bennett elbowed him and said derisively, “Yeah, right: Assisted Living: The Musical.”

Compton & Bennett

Assisted Living: The Musical® is written and performed by Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett as Compton & Bennett. Before this show, they wrote, produced, and performed satirical shows in and about southwest Florida for more than 16 years. They are members of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Rick Compton

Rick Compton has led the creative life since escaping from the corporate world in 1988. During his 15-year career as a freelance magazine writer, Compton wrote features for glossy regional lifestyle magazines and won numerous state-level professional awards. He also authored the children’s book The Essential Street Painter (Simon & Schuster).

In 1994, he founded Via Colori® Street Painting Festivals, which he franchised to 14 cities around the country. It has raised more than $8 million for a variety of social causes. He has served on the board of directors of eight not-for-profit corporations, two of which he founded. Compton has toured in the United States and Japan as keyboardist for The Platters and has played in pit orchestras and served as music director for dozens of theatrical productions.

Compton lives with his wife of 40-plus years, Cher, on 10 acres inland from Naples, Florida, with three horses, two Corgis, and Larry the Peacock. Larry enjoys his own Facebook page.

Betsy Bennett

Betsy Bennett has theatre in her veins. At age 10, she was cast in her first show. Soon, she began to write and produce shows in her basement. Five years later, she took her first professional acting job in summer stock theatre. She was 15 and in high school at George School, the same Pennsylvania Quaker boarding school that Stephen Sondheim attended. At Kellogg Community College, she was immersed in the theatre program, was named Theatre Student of the Year, and wrote prose and poetry for Perhaps, the school’s literary magazine. Later, in Albion College’s theatre program, she won a term in New York City as an intern at Playwrights Horizons under the leadership of Robert Moss and Andre Bishop.

After graduating from Albion, Bennett moved to Chicago and became active in that theatre community. She co-founded a short-lived professional company called Arcane Theatriks. Bennett has performed in more than 90 different productions, from regional touring troupes like The Acting Group to dinner theatre. Favorite roles include Abigail, and later Elizabeth, in The Crucible; First Witch in Macbeth; and Mama Rose in Gypsy, for which she received 30 consecutive standing ovations.

Bennett lives with her son Jack in Naples, Florida, where she tries to grow vegetables on her lanai.