Staying creative at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony

Morgan Gibson, 85, right, shares a moment with Angela McEwan during the poetry class at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony in North Hollywood. Residents must be at least 62 years old to live there.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Lucius Fisher Foster III, a 93-year-old World War II veteran, reacts with delight during the poetry class at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony. He took up poetry after moving into the building.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Bert Sanders, left, performs a solo as Mary Shook listens during a drum circle class at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony. They and their neighbors are part of a generational shift in how aging Americans are spending their retirement years.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Instructor Clarence Johnston, center, chats with Bert Sanders, left, and Mary Shook before the drum circle class. Today’s seniors are living longer and increasingly trading leisurely retirements for an active lifestyle, lifelong learning and so-called encore careers, experts say.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Joyce Henton performs a tambourine solo during a drum circle class at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony. The 2-year-old complex is a red-and-white, loft-style building where the mail room is labeled “Fan Mail Room” and banners outside say “Live to Write” and “Live to Perform.”  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

World War II veteran Lucius Fisher Foster III, 93, second from right, reads a poem he wrote for the poetry class at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony. The North Hollywood complex has a professional performing arts theater and a packed calendar of free classes -- all of them challenging.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Instructor Morgan Gibson, 85, puts on a record of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas reading one of his works. “He speaks so smoothly ... but it took him hours to produce one line,” Gibson told the class. “He’d revise and revise.”   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)