About Us

ACT One is an amateur musical theatre group based in Shepshed, near Loughborough, Leicestershire. We are an independent youth theatre, catering for local young people and their interest in musical theatre.

We rehearse every Friday night at Christchurch Methodist Church in Shepshed, and perform two productions a year, usually at The Iveshead Theatre (formerly Hind Leys College Theatre), Shepshed: this will include a major musical and a fully staged concert, bith having live orchestras or bands.

We are always looking for new talent, but unfortunately we have to limit the size and makeup of the group. In order to do this we ask every potential member to audition to join us. If you are interested in joining us and are in school years 6-13 (that’s roughly 10 -18 years old!) then please contact us for the details of our next audition. These are usually held twice a year on or around the time of our shows, and will involve both singing and dancing because that's what we do!. Full details available on request.

As well as providing the opportunity to perform on stage, ACT One inspires and builds confidence not only on stage, but also in life itself. In fact we already have several ex-members attending performing arts colleges and indeed some of them have also entered the profession, some doing extremely well. Many of our members have also gone on to perform with a host of local adult groups.

We are a close group, we make every effort to support each other and make every rehearsal a fun experience; the group is split into four "houses" named after West End Theatres, namely Duke Of York, Dominion, Phoenix and Drury Lane, and these compete against each other for fun and to win a trophy!

Each house also has a leader/cast representative to help bring ideas from the cast to the committee.

Please note that all our trustees & leaders have been DBS-checked with regard to their involvement with children & all members need to obtain a children's performance licence from the local authority if they are in years 6-11.

We regularly review our policies and procedures and you may download our latest documents here:

CONSTITUTION

SAFEGUARDING & CHILD PROTECTION POLICY

PRIVACY POLICY

ONLINE SAFETY POLICY

A BRIEF HISTORY: "from little acorns...mighty oaks may grow"

The group was set up in 1996 by Adrian Dobson, and was originally called the Acorn Community Theatre.

We opened our doors to a staggering 60 plus youngsters at our first auditions; it was at that point there was no turning back! The curtains opened for the very first time when we performed a fundraising concert “Encore”, which lead to the successful performance in January 1997 of the musical “Alice” based on “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, and penned by Adrian Dobson himself.

Our growing little acorn, has seen many changes over the years. First of which was a change in name, a shortened A.C.T. and the added One formed the more upbeat ACT One. We gained Charitable Status in 2007 and a committee was appointed from parents, helpers and friends to oversee the running of the group.

ACT One has tackled a variety of ambitious projects over the years. One of our biggest challenges saw the combination of traditional theatre with the spectacle of the circus in “Barnum”. Then, perhaps our most memorable performance, “Les Miserables-schools edition” recreated the world's longest running musical and which was extremely well received in the community. The sell-out show got rave reviews and standing ovations every night.

Since this time, we have gone on to perform strong and diverse shows and in 2013 we had the opportunity to revisit "The Wizard Of Oz", our first repeated show.

Our 18th show in February 2014 was the colourful and very cheesy "Summer Holiday" for which we received great reviews, and 2015 took us back to the roaring 20s with "Thoroughly Modern Millie" For our 20th production we revisited "Grease" in the full revised version, this with an amazing 20th Birthday concert, featuring songs from all of our 20 years of performing, completed a great anniversary year. In 2017 we performed the ever-popular "Annie" to near sell-out audiences and "Our House" brought more than a little madness to the newly renamed Iveshead Theatre in 2018, receiving some amazing reviews and feedback. We went back to sea again in 2019 revisiting the ever-popular "Anything Goes". In 2020 we gave it "All That Jazz" in "Chicago", but, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we were unable to perform a full show in 2021. With May 2022 came our spectacular return to Iveshead College with Disney's Aladdin Jr, based on the original Disney film, and we have just completed our 2023 show, the exciting "Popstars-The 90s Musical" which had the cast, crew and audience dancing and singing along to some great 1990s music. Watch this space for what is next!

We have looked after and nurtured the young lives and talents of over 300 local young people and remain the longest running independent youth theatre in Leicestershire - Not a bad achievement for something that started life as a little acorn!