What's the use of growing older? Actress takes on aging in stage show
What's the use of growing older? Actress takes on aging in stage show
Ilana Keller, Asbury Park PressWed, October 14, 2026 at 9:16 AM UTC
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At 79, Kathryn Grody opens her solo show, "The Unexpected 3rd," by asking simply "onward to what?" The answer is heartful and hilarious.
Onward to what?
At nearly 80, Kathryn Grody chooses to open her solo show, "The Unexpected 3rd," by posing that question.
If you're expecting the answer to be prim and proper, waxing eloquent about the beauty of aging and surrender to the world around you, you're at the wrong show.
Your first clue? The show's full title: "The Unexpected 3rd: A Radical, Rollicking Rumination on the Optimism of Staying Alive." Full of heart, humor and many doses of reality, the show, written and performed by Grody, challenges what it means to get older.
"This one was sort of my being pissed at the obsession with being a young person, and that's the only kind of person with any value in this country, and how people responded to me when I had white hair," Grody said. "It was kind of a rebuttal to every cliche for people, including myself. Not all 80-year-olds are alike, not all 2-year-olds are alike, not all teenagers are alike."
Moreover, Grody says the piece, now playing at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick through Nov. 1, is an appeal, to herself and others.
"It's sort of a plea to keep evolving as a person, to not be finished, to not surrender to whatever the dominant cliches and limitations are. … To adapt, not surrender, and hopefully be as alive and evolving as you can be until your last breath," she said.
Embracing changes
It's certainly a message she lives in her own life. As a performer, her career has spanned more than six decades and she has been married to actor Mandy Patinkin for more than 45 years. But her social media presence, cultivated with her family during the COVID-19 crisis and now including a successful podcast, "Don't Listen to Us with Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody," thrust her into a new spotlight.
She's thankful it happened in her 70s.
"My closest friend for 50 years was Diane Keaton, and I was married to Mandy Patinkin. So I was known as the best friend of Di or the wife of Mandy, and then I had my little niche as an off-Broadway, Public Theater actress. I did 10 plays there. I got two Obies and Drama Desk nominations, and I was really happy with that. I didn't have the same ambition that Diane and Mandy did. I think it's very dangerous, and I think we've seen this with when you're discovered, like a Justin Bieber at 13, and your identity and sense of yourself depends on how people are responding to you or how many views you get. I think it's really hard to know who you are."
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In her 70s, after learning what a "view" even was, she says navigating the process of becoming more well-known is a welcome challenge.
"I'm not going to change my character depending on if somebody sees me in the street and recognizes me or doesn't. But it's very interesting how addictive that is," she said. "I notice it, and that's not something I ever used to notice. I don't feel good or bad. I just go, 'Huh? Interesting.'"
As she looks back, she says she's appreciative for the way her career and life have unfolded, warts and all.
"I'm very grateful that I've had ups and downs and hills and valleys. I didn't have this one moment where I was discovered, and then had to work hard to keep that. I've been a working actress in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and now 70s … it's kind of a landscape that's very full, but I'm not clinging to the mountain of that one moment. I think that I've been very lucky to have that gift."
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'The Unexpected 3rd'
"The Unexpected 3rd" is the third solo show Grody has done with director Timothy Near. The women are longtime collaborators, meeting in college.
"We've known each other for 50 years, and I seem to be inspired to do these solo shows when there's a topic that I feel I'm experiencing, and lots of other people are experiencing, and it's not being shared in the sort of theatrical or cultural zeitgeist," Grody said.
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The first show, "A Mom's Life," came about around 25 years ago, following the birth of Grody and Patinkin's second son.
"Somebody asked me 'Are you working now or just staying home having fun with the kids?' I just was so astonished by that. I went to Joe Papp (at the Public Theater) and I said, 'I would like to answer that theatrically,' and he said, 'If you write it, I'll produce it,' and that's how this began," Grody said.
The second show was "Falling Apart … Together," "about how everybody in a family can be fantastic, and then there's catastrophe for everybody. But you don't have to split; you can enfold that story," Grody said.
Now at 79, "The Unexpected 3rd" examines what comes with age, and the desire to keep learning and changing.
To her delight, the response from audiences of all ages has been affirming.
"It's been fascinating. I kind of expected that people over 50 would respond to a lot, but what has been really thrilling to me is the response from young people. It's not only to encourage people that are older to keep going and to feel their own value, but it's to encourage younger people to not be afraid of this, to not try and stop the process," Grody said.
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It works. After one show, a 36-year-old came up to her after the performance to share that it was her birthday and tell Grody she made growing older look exciting.
"Certainly, some days it is, and some days it sucks," Grody laughed. "But that's true for everybody. It's a plea to still be human, and to embrace all that that means. Your changing body, your changing face, your changing brain, learning new things, changing your mind, and not being one of those butterflies under glass that are beautiful, but they're not flying anywhere."
She says she doesn't mean to sugarcoat the aging process, including the increasing amounts of grief and loss you encounter as you get older.
"There's some things you can control, which is your attitude about it, and some things that you can't," she says, noting she has lost some of the most important people in her life recently, including Keaton, who died in October 2025.
"I think we all have to just practice being fully human and fully kind, and take as many breaths as we can as we step forward, trying to heal each other and this planet," she says.
Ultimately, while keeping "The Unexpected 3rd" real, Grody says hope is needed for change, both within ourselves and the world.
"I am very much wanting to recognize what is difficult and challenging, both in the world and in me, at this point," she said. "But I am an optimist's daughter at heart. Despair is not a strategy for living or political action."
Go: "The Unexpected 3rd"; through Nov. 1; George Street Playhouse, 11 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick. For tickets and more information, visit georgestreetplayhouse.org.
Ilana Keller is an award-winning journalist and lifelong New Jersey resident who loves Broadway and really bad puns.Reach out: ikeller@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: What's the use of growing older? Actress takes on aging in stage show
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