Christmas is not only a time for celebration but its also a time for reflection, to look back on the year as a whole, considering all its ups and downs. With it landing on the 25th of December, six days before the New Year, it’s normal to feel like the preceding 358 days have flown by, merging into a massive, unidentifiable ball of calendar dates and photo memories. It’s at this moment in time that we at ACTS would like to welcome this time of reflection and look back on the year that we have had with our wonderful young people.
In January, we welcomed all of our brilliant young performers back into the ACTS building. Easing them all back into the classrooms with games and acting exercises, our students all waited eagerly and patiently for March, when we announced that Matilda would be our summer show of 2023.
In April, we celebrated our first anniversary of the ACTS building on 4 Ross Crescent. Even now, knowing that we have somewhere we can call home for ACTS and our young people is a dream come true. April’s significance did not stop there as two days later we embarked on our first ever trip to London, one of the beating hearts of the theatrical world. Over three days, we toured London, visiting many of its historical theatre sites and even managed to catch Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre – a show that may have foreshadowed our very own Christmas production…
Leaving London, we traveled back up home where we prepared for the Hamilton Our Town Easter Gala, where we performed a 20 minute set as part of the celebration. For our young people, trips and performances like this are absolutely irreplaceable as they ensure that the self expression and talent of our young people is not restricted to the bounds of our building; it allows them to be whoever they want to be outside of it, shining wherever they go.
To broaden the horizons of our performers, we also introduced them to acting for screen, filming self tapes with our Advanced Academy who took to camera like young Dicaprios! To accommodate these talents, we reopened our Saturday classes to allow our younger talents more slots and time to sparkle.
As our talent grew larger, in May we renovated what was once a storage cupboard into a fully functioning music room where our head of musical theatre, Jessica, could train our singers on a one-to-one basis offering them unique and individualised vocal and singing training. This room proved invaluable as our Matilda rehearsals entered full swing with the performance scheduled for June.
Matilda was a roaring success, selling out both shows thanks to incredible performances from our young people. As our first MTI junior show, it became clear that our young people were up for the challenge and gave us the confidence for a much larger Christmas production.
Over the next few months we hosted Summer camps, Halloween parties, celebrated a year with our sensational dance teacher Mhairi-Kirstie and 2 years with our wonderful Musical Theatre teacher Jessica, bought a van and in September, we announced our Christmas Show, ’The Wizard of Oz’, a pantomime whose cast would contain over 100 of our students, a feat we could never dream of accomplishing just a year ago.
For the sake of brevity, we have skipped over some details but looking back on everything we have accomplished this year we can’t help but feel humbled and grateful. We also can’t look back on the year without thanking all of you because you make ACTS the place it is and we hope that with every class we repay the love we receive from you and our amazing students. We can’t wait to see you all in the New Year.
Have a wonderful Christmas break and have a very Happy New Year,
ACTS