Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society (CUMTS)
The Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society (CUMTS) was founded in October 1998 to perform high-quality musical theatre in Cambridge. CUMTS is devoted exclusively to Musical Theatre, providing scope for students to hone their skills in all aspects of production: we welcome performers, instrumentalists, directors, choreographers, musical directors, producers, technical directors and more.
As a society, we primarily produce high-quality productions of original student-written musicals and well-loved existing shows in various venues around Cambridge, mostly performing at the ADC Theatre and Corpus Playroom. In recent years, our output has increased exponentially to reach full productions of more than 8 musicals per academic year, alongside our smaller-scale cabaret shows, beloved open mic ‘Bar Nights’, and professional development opportunities for our members.
As the Society continues to grow and more opportunities become available for our members, we are gaining a reputation as one of the country's largest, most successful, and highly regarded student musical theatre societies. For the last decade, we have taken an original musical to the Edinburgh Fringe - enjoying many successful runs with productions such as ‘On Your Bike’ (2021), winner of Musical Theatre Review’s Best Musical, ‘Rust’ (2019), winner of Best Musical at the Derek Awards and nominated as Musical Theatre Review’s Best Musical, and of course the globally acclaimed ‘SiX’ (2017), currently enjoying multi-year runs on the West End and Broadway.
In the last two years we have also enjoyed strongly sold productions of the musicals ‘Ctrl, Alt, Deceit!’ (2024) and ‘Palindrome’ (2023). But with the rising costs of Fringe, we have had to cut back on our endeavours – sending a musical for half of the month, and curtailing the number of students we can financially subsidize for Fringe. We are currently making a loss every year by sending shows to the Fringe, and are appealing to our alumni to contribute to a fund for the Fringe to help secure CUMTS’ presence at the Fringe for the next 10 years.
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Derek Wilson
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