The Plight for a Place called Home

Our director, actors and tech crew are all volunteers. They generally range from the ages of one to eighty. The requirement is that they can attend the rehearsals they need to be at, make the show dates, and do what needs to be done. Easier said than accomplished.

Families from Alden make up most of ACTS members. Their kids for the most part try out for a show while they are attending Saint John's School, or Alden High School. Their parents are at try outs and also audition. Suddenly we have a cast. When our high school kids go to college, our numbers dwindle. The students grow up into adults they get jobs.

ACTS membership varies from year to year. Some of our people our families living in Alden, some of our members are families of parents who work in Alden. Some of our members lived in Alden for a period of time. Then our employment situation changed, so we had to move. We liked ACTS. We cared about what ACTS was doing, so we rearranged our lives so that we can still work with ACTS.

Some of our actors are people who use ACTS as stepping stone to broaden their resume, and move on to theaters that pay money for their services. We are glad to have these people work with us. They bring to ACTS their talents and formal training in theater. The people in ACTS who stay in ACTS, learn from these people. We add the things they taught us to our own repertoire of knowledge. The quality of our shows increases because of these people. The up-coming professional tends to do one to three shows with ACTS before they move on to the Buffalo Theater District, LA or New York.

The young people in ACTS, tend to be involved in many other activities like; scouts, sports, other theater groups, and church groups. Many of our high school members do ACTS, and the play at Alden High School at the same time.

The same things that make excellent theater people, make excellent employees. As their responsibilities grow, their time to do other things like theater diminishes. When our adults employers change our working hours, it usually conflicts with ACTS. Many of our people work for companies who send their employees, (our actors, and tech people,) to different states, and countries. We are always searching for new actors and new tech people.