Our Roots 1946-1966
The Tamworth Arts Club has a long history and though the format that exists now was essentially formed in 1965 (when it was called the Opera Group), its roots can be traced all the way back to 1946.
In February 1946, the Tamworth Arts and Science club was formed with the aim of fostering the enjoyment of the Arts and Sciences. There were various groups formed covering literature, arts, music, history, science and drama. By the fifties the interest in the Sciences had waned, so in 1953 the title was changed to the Tamworth Arts Club and a Film and Photography Group soon formed. The Club flourished throughout the fifties and the Drama Group in particular received acclaim.
In 1965 after great public demand, the Opera Group was formed and its first performance in April 1966 of The Mikado was a huge success. Over the following years, the Opera Group inherited the title of Tamworth Arts Club when the other separate groups disbanded.
1966 to 2017
Since the success of our first performance, The Mikado in 1966, our club has gone from strength to strength. This is down to the hard work of the committees, the talent of our performers and production teams and most importantly the loyalty of our audiences. We pride ourselves on the highly professional standard of Musical Theatre that we have presented to our audiences biennially for the past fifty years.
For the first couple of decades, the club principally performed operettas, especially Gilbert and Sullivan. These performances received good reviews and were often sold out. Through the Eighties and Nineties, we introduced a lot more Broadway and West End musicals into our repertoire. The new millennium has been dominated by musicals but we haven’t turned our backs on our opera roots.
One of the greatest strengths of the Tamworth Arts Club and one, that is a particular credit to Tamworth itself, is the knowledge and talent of the club’s performers and the production teams. This has allowed the Tamworth Arts Club to try a wide variety of productions and even write our own shows. Since the early eighties we have generally performed one major production and one smaller musical revue, written by some of the members, per year.
2017 Onwards
In 2016 the committee decided that the society needed a name that reflected the nature of what we do at a core. After a vote of the membership, from 1st November 2017 we have been known as Tamworth Musical Theatre Company.
Our membership is very varied with a good mixture of ages and experience, including some of the original Opera Group though they do not perform anymore. We are always looking for new members who are interested in helping out in all aspects of putting on a show onstage, backstage or front of house.
The Tamworth Musical Theatre Company has also taken part in many external performances throughout the years for charities and also to help out other organisations. These have included concert performances at Retirement homes, W.I.s, Parish Halls, P.T.A functions and events organised by the Friends of Tamworth Castle.
For the majority of our performances we performed at the Tamworth Assembly Rooms. When it closed for renovation we moved to Landau Forte Sixth Form Theatre. We have even performed at The Brewhouse in Burton and have performed several summer shows on a local farm. We pride ourselves on our variety of shows and ability to perform in many different venues.
2024
In April 2024, we launched our youth branch of TMTC. TMTC Youth has been a dream for us for a very long time and based on the success of our 2024 production of Oliver, we decided to take the plunge! We are excited to see how our Youth group grows over the next months and years!
Tamworth Musical Theatre Company is a Registered Charity, No. 252852 and we pride ourselves on donating money and time to other national and local charities.