History

In 1944 the employees of Horsehay Works, a company originally founded by Abraham Darby II, who went on to manufacture the steel plates for the ‘SS Great Britain’ and the world’s first commercial railway, decided to form an am dram group. ‘Horsehay Works Amateur Dramatic Society’ was born to provide wartime entertainment. The first productions; three one-act plays, followed the next year by Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, were staged in the company canteen. Membership was initially restricted to employees until the 1950’s when those not employed by the company could be invited to join. 

When the Horsehay Works closed down and the canteen changed into Horsehay Village Hall, we became ‘Horsehay Amateur Dramatic Society’, still performing on the original stage where it all began. 

Initially, the Society performed two plays a year until the 1960s when we adopted our ‘three plays a year’ routine.  To date we’ve performed to over 55,000 audience members and staged 180 productions, ranging from literary classics by Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Charlotte Bronte, and Wilke Collins to modern show stoppers from Ben Elton, Michael Frayn, Mike Harding and David Tristam. Having staged musicals in the 1980’s and 90’s, such as ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘The King and I’, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Oliver’,  we now tend to concentrate on plays from a variety of genres and authors, including our own Society Members. A full list of our past productions can be found here…