The Blog

80 Years of ACT: Now and Next

In our previous posts,  we explored ACT’s origins and some of the milestones that shaped the organization over the past eighty years. This installment looks at ACT now and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Today, ACT is a year-round arts organization offering opportunities to participate at every age and experience level. The Mainstage season presents five musicals each year, supported by audition workshops that help welcome new performers to the stage. In recent years, many productions have featured casts with half or more of the performers making their ACT Mainstage debut.

Each year, the ACT Education Department introduces hundreds of young people to theatre through Youth Productions, Tanglewood Summer camps, Tanglewood Troupe program (Tanglewood Teens, Tanglewood Youth, and Tanglewood Tech), Theatre Arts Classes for youth and adults, Student Matinees, ACT School Tours, and ACT’s arts integration program, IMPACT. More than $70,000 in scholarships is awarded each year to help ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate.

The Autumn Players continue to demonstrate that theatre is truly lifelong, presenting six Readers Theatre productions each season alongside workshops, fundraisers, and opportunities to read, perform, and build community together.

ACT Late Night provides a home for productions that are bolder, more experimental, and artist-driven, while also creating space for the ACT Broadway Series, Improv Tonight, and Asheville Fringe Society encore performances.

ACT also continues to expand access to live theatre through Pay-What-You-Can performances for every Mainstage production, free library tickets through Buncombe County’s ZOOM Pass program, descriptive audio services for patrons with visual impairments, ASL interpreted performances, and Spanish interpretation for select productions.
The results of eighty years of growth can be seen throughout the organization.

During ACT’s 79th season, 17,395 patrons attended Mainstage productions. This is the highest Mainstage attendance in the last eleven years and the second highest in the last twenty. ACT also welcomed a record 512 season subscribers, the highest total on record and 15% above the previous record.
At one point this season, more than 200 community members were simultaneously participating in ACT productions, with Hello, Dolly!, In the Heights, Cabaret, and Newsies Jr. all in rehearsal or performance at the same time. Shortly afterward, ACT had more productions in active rehearsal and performance than at any other point in its recent history. Every available space in the building was filled as In the Heights, Little Shop of Horrors, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Dance Nation, Clyde’s, and Willy Wonka Jr. all moved through various stages of production.

In many ways, these moments echo a conversation about space that has been taking place at ACT for decades. The earliest blueprints for expanding the facility date back to 1974, just two years after the theatre opened. Since then, every decade has produced new concepts, master plans, and architectural drawings. Although each proposal differed, they consistently identified many of the same priorities: dedicated production storage, a scenic shop, additional rehearsal space, more classrooms, and the addition of a medium-sized performance space.

As ACT enters its 80th year, it seems likely that the next chapter will include many of the same aspirations found in those early blueprints. Creating the space to support the next generation of theatre makers, along with the volunteers, educators, audiences, and community partners who make that work possible, remains one of the enduring opportunities for Asheville Community Theatre.
The history of Asheville Community Theatre is ultimately the history of the people who have chosen to share their time, talents, and generosity with one another. Every birthday is both a recognition of the past and an invitation to imagine the future.
Thank you, Asheville, for helping to write ACT’s story.