Tom Gleisner wrote a comedy musical – and it’s set in an aged care home

As one of the great minds behind The Castle, Frontline and Utopia, Tom Gleisner is someone you'd consider to be part of the country's comedy elite, so his latest project may come as a surprise – a musical about aged care.

After spending countless hours supporting his and his wife's parents through their final days, observing the day to day goings-on of a typical Australian aged care home, an idea for a show was born.

"I've spent the last decade or so in or around aged care [...] and over that time I came to be acutely aware of the difference good care can make to a resident's life, those simple touches that give them dignity or just a sense of joy for a day," Mr Gleisner said.

"By rights this musical should be dedicated to my mother-in-law, Anita, who passed away 18 months ago at the age of 100."

Mr Gleisner quickly came to learn that just because some residents weren't saying much, that didn't mean they didn't have tales to tell.

"They all have extraordinary lives and backstories, and I think that was something I really wanted to capture. And I kept thinking, there's a story in this somewhere, in this world of aged care."

Enter Bloom the musical, a joyful, funny and outrageous comedy set within the walls of an aged care home.

After a massively successful run in Melbourne in late 2023, the show opened on Wednesday night at Sydney Theatre Company's Roslyn Packer Theatre.

"One of the messages of Bloom is you're never too old to find new things, to find joy, to find a new chapter. It is perhaps in a different way than it would be if you were in your 20s, but it's just as important and just as real," Mr Gleisner said.

"I wanted my residents, my older characters, to be every bit as funny and flawed and forward as the younger people."

In the world of film and television, older characters are so often relegated to the background or used as comedic relief, Mr Gleisner said. In Bloom he puts older people at centre stage, both literally and figuratively.

"I think ageism is probably the last 'ism' that we still get away with. It's still kind of okay to make jokes about Joe Biden being so old that he forgot why he came in the room. With Bloom I really wanted to avoid that," Mr Gleisner added.

"Older people deserve every bit as much respect and interest as anyone else. And, in my world of writing film and television, too often older characters are wheeled out just to be the butt of the joke – they've forgotten their reading glasses, again! – and I was determined, when I started to write Bloom, that I was not going to do that."

In Mr Gleisner's signature style, the show peels back the lid on what most may consider some of society's most ordinary spaces (think a fibro home under the flightpath in The Castle, or bureaucracy in a government infrastructure planning office in Utopia), revealing the extraordinary humanity underneath.

"I think the mundane is perfect fodder for humour"

"I think if you start in a place that is inherently funny, it's kind of hard to add the comedy," Mr Gleisner said.

"That's what brought me back to aged care facilities [...] it's a fascinating and fun world but not necessarily a sexy or exciting one."

The show also does well to celebrate the staff, as Mr Gleisner took care to capture the joy that he witnessed carers bringing to so many lives.

"Our incredible carers are amongst the most underpaid, undervalued and overworked people in the country," he said.

"I've incorporated a character in Bloom, I think her title is the 'lifestyle and leisure coordinator', and she runs the choir despite being unable to sing. So it's one of the few times where I think the residents would regard being slightly deaf as something of a blessing. But that was just the sort of example of the people I met and saw for real that I was able to hopefully capture in Bloom."

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Bloom is now showing at at Sydney Theatre Company's Roslyn Packer Theatre until May 11. Visit the website for tickets.