Sherborne Studio Theatre

Amateur Players of Sherborne, known to members and friends as either APS or The Players, was founded in 1934, the year Fred B. Alcock and a group of fellow theatrical enthusiasts staged Tons of Money, produced by Maurice Welcher at the Carlton Theatre in Newland. This first production was a roaring success; it ran for a week, 1,850 people came to see it, and the princely sum of £101 (nearly £5,500 in today’s money) was raised in aid of the Yeatman Hospital in Sherborne. Following that, The Players started to establish themselves with spectacular productions of No, No Nanette in 1935, Night Must Fall in 1937 and The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1938.

In most years since 1946 APS have presented spring and autumn productions, sometimes with an outdoor summer production as well. A full list of plays can be found on our Past Productions page. We marked the change of century in style, with a series of outdoor Shakespeare productions, starting with The Tempest in 1999 (which we also took to Preveza in Greece) and ending with Twelfth Night in 2002. In 2009 we celebrated our 75th Anniversary with a revival of Tons of Money at the Digby Hall, combined with an exhibition of 75 years of memorabilia.

Now that we have our own small theatre, we aim to present four APS productions a year. In addition, in January 2023 and September 2024 we presented two one-man shows by visiting actors, and we hope to present more of those in the future.