"It's more challenging to learn lines as we get older," said company founder Donna Bick.

"I don't like to say [break a leg] since I've gotten older," said actor Bobbie Roggeveen.

The fledgling company will have a chance to enhance its collective brainpower at a Nov. 12 matinee at the Willows Senior Center. The group's second production features two one-act comedies: Oh, Doctor! by Elaine May and Mike Nichols and The Cat Connection, the story of two very different women who come to the park every day to feed the same cat.

Bick said she was inspired to start up a senior theater company in San Jose after hearing about Oakland's Stagebridge, the oldest such company in the nation. She called on some old friends from her community theater days, including Jerry Dienstbier and Ruby Zussman.

"I thought senior theater sounded interesting, and we didn't have one in San Jose," Bick said. "I knew Jerry was rehearsing a play with Ruby, so I called him.

"I thought the senior center was a perfect place for it, and I knew they had a stage," she added.

Bick contacted other amateur performers she'd worked with over the years from community theater productions with companies such as the Saratoga Civic Light Opera and the Santa Clara Players. One of those actors was Walt Duzmal.

"We've worked together all over hell's half-acre," said Walt Duzmal. "She and I met 25 years ago."

In 1990 Bick and company member Jackie Hughes joined the Santa Clara Players' community outreach group, which performed one-act plays at senior centers and retirement homes.

"Jackie is a playwright, and we did five of her plays," Bick said.

"That's where a lot of us have already done this kind of thing," Hughes said. "If you counted, I bet we'd have a few 100 years of collective experience."

The company's core members also have varied work experience off the stage. Before she retired, Roggeveen worked as an office administrator. Dienstbier was an IBM employee, and Tab Morales worked as a community college counselor. Company founder Donna Bick is a retired probation officer.

Dienstbier, who used to run a sketch comedy troupe in Campbell, said he joined the Senior Theatre because "there was nothing going on" in San Jose for more seasoned amateur performers.

Morales, a composer, wrote the score and collaborated on the book and lyrics for the musical comedy Dancing with Fred.

"It deals with a man who wants to be Fred Astaire but can't dance," Morales said.

While the company is content for now to stage one show a month for a matinee audience at the Willows Senior Center, the young-at-heart performers also want to see their company grow.

"We hope to travel to other senior centers in the area," Hughes said, adding that a friend is writing a full-length script for the company. "We'd like the community to come out for that.

"Stagebridge has an office and funding," she added, referring to the successful theater company in Oakland. "That'd be wonderful if we live long enough."

"Oh, Doctor!" and "The Cat Connection" play Friday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. at the Willows Senior Center, 2175 Lincoln Ave., San Jose. No admission charge. For more information about the Willows Senior Theatre, call Donna Bick at 408.265.3424.