2025 marks 40 years of acta Community Theatre. This year, we’re reflecting on the countless stories shared, voices heard, and communities united through the transformative power of theatre. We remain, as ever, dedicated to creativity, inclusivity, and profound social impact.
Throughout the year, we’ll celebrate this important milestone in various ways – keep an eye out for news as it comes!
acta thrives on creating social change that has a genuine, tangible benefit for individuals, communities and our wider society. Our mission is to bring together people from different cultures, experiences, and generations to make and share creative work.
We have three strategic outcomes:
- More cohesive communities
- Improved mental health and wellbeing
- More creative communities
Within this framework, our main priorities are reducing isolation and loneliness, increasing confidence and self-esteem, increasing self-value and sense of purpose and belonging, improving aspirations, and increasing access to the wider creative community.
In the year 23/24 alone we helped people access their creativity over 3,600 times – that’s more than 10 times a day, every single day of the year.
One of our theatre groups is Cornerstone. It’s designed specifically to support people facing disadvantage –e.g refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, disabled people, socially isolated people. A member of Cornerstone described how it feels first-hand to work with acta: “I have spent years forgetting who I am. This project has been a trampoline for me. It bought back my creativity and connected me to the world.”
Phoenix Theatre is another group we run, this one is specific to young adults aged between 18 and 30. Without acta, many of these young people wouldn’t have a platform to share their voice, or be able to meet socially with their peers. One member said “My confidence has grown so much, when I first started I was so nervous, but I was accepted straight away and with the encouragement acta gives, I have been able to find the confidence to perform in plays and have found my love for acting growing and growing”
The Challenge Ahead
Despite our successes, the current cost-of-living crisis poses significant difficulties for arts organisations up and down the UK. With rising operational costs, and increased competition for decreasing funds, our future is getting increasingly challenging.
To continue our mission and expand our reach, we aim to raise £40,000 this year—£1,000 for each year of our existence. These funds will enable us to:
- Maintain and develop our community workshops
- Continue opening our doors to those most in need
- Ensure our performances remain accessible to all, regardless of financial circumstances
What we’ll do differently
In order to future-proof our organisation and our vital work, we need to generate more income. Currently, we make money from hiring our spaces out – but even if we were fully booked 24/7, this still wouldn’t be enough. This year, we are trialling some paid-for sensory workshops for parent and baby. These will be run in order to fuel our accessible community work – and will not replace it, but instead support it. We understand that this is different from how we’ve always worked, and we’re happy to answer any questions you have about it.
How You Can Help
Your support is crucial. Here’s how you can contribute:
Donate: Every contribution, no matter the size, brings us closer to our goal.
Spread the Word: Share our mission with friends, family, and colleagues.
40 days of creativity: Raise money for acta by pledging 40 days of creativity! Each of the 40 days we will send you a prompt, and you can let your imagination run wild! Make a play, make a sculpture from blu-tack, paint something in watercolours, write a limerick, arrange some stones in your local park… whatever you do, be creative! More details for this coming soon, but if you’re keen and want to get involved send an email to info@acta-bristol.com asking to be kept in the loop and we’ll contact you with updates.
Acta Big40 Supporter ticket: We have always worked hard to keep our ticket prices as low as possible in an effort to make sure everybody can come see the shows, regardless of income. We’re not going to change that – but we are going to offer another option, for those who can pay more. This year, we are also offering a ticket that costs £10 – this includes a donation straight to our Big40 appeal.
Together, we can navigate these challenging times and continue to enrich lives through the arts. Thank you for being an integral part of our story.
