The History of Our Society

In 1929 a group of senior members of the choir of St. Cross Church, Clayton, discussed the formation of a Dramatic Society. They had already been members of a Minstrel troupe organised by a Mr. Johnson, the Headmaster of St.Cross School, which had disbanded and were looking for a replacement. The first difficulty was finding a Producer. One of the committee had a friend who was a member of Altrincham Garrick Theatre, and the result was that Mr. Lloyd Birch, the Treasurer at the Garrick, agreed to help. In fact, he became the permanent producer for many years.

The first play, 'Uncle Ned', was presented at the old Rowsley Street Co-Op in 1931. Rehearsals were held in an upstairs room at the Church Inn on Clayton Lane, by courtesy of the landlady, Miss Alice Bromley, who was also the organist at St. Cross.

In the mid 1930's an alternative venue was found at the Congregational Church on Seymour Road. At this stage a number of Variety Shows had to be produced in order to fund the 'straight' plays (sounds familiar!). Then came the war: the society ran shows to entertain the forces, but naturally membership was depleted due to members being 'called up'. After the war, the Society made a permanent home at the Scouts' Hall on Seymour Road, where tickets were 6d. (that's 2 and 1/2 pence!). During our residence here, the stage sets were built at the Butterworths Factory on Pollard Street, as the Managing Director Mr. E. Stansfield, was also the Society's President.

Subsequently, the Old Coffee House, over the Midland bank near Grey Mare Lane was rented. During our stay here plays ran for 2 weeks, and admission prices went up to 2/- (that's 10p). A substanstial amount of money was raised by voluntary subscription, to finance the building of a Green Room and toilets. The opening play was 'Robert's Wife' , and during the play's run 1,770 patrons saw the show. The demand for tickets exceeded supply for each of the six shows each year.


In 1960, Mr. Hampson, a local butcher, donated a silver cup to be awarded each year for outstanding service to the Society. Meanwhile, the Midland Bank gave the Society notice to quit the residency of the Old Coffee House. Shows continued at the Trinity Methodist Church Hall, at the corner of Craven Street and Manchester Road in Droylsden.

At this time, a chance came to buy a disused Methodist Church near Medlock Street.The complex was purchased on mortgage, and is to this day Droylsden Little Theatre's home. The main No.1 building was to become the Theatre, whilst a Studio Theatre was going to be established in building No.2: this never happened and 40 years later our Theatre is still in No.2!
However this doesn't mean we have stood still: the summer of 2004 saw a complete overhaul of the auditorium with a new stage, new carpeting, a rejuvanated lighting system, and best of all... new seats. Then in the summer of 2005 year we turned our attentions to the bar. We thought that we could deal with anything after the auditorium, but the bar proved to be trickier than we thought; the main problem being trying to brew up in a building site. We did it though, and the result is a comfortable and modern theatre. Hopefully, we won't have too many big projects to cope with in the future, but then again, that's all part of the fun... isn't it?