Amateur Players of Sherborne, known to members and friends as either APS or The Players, was founded in 1934, the year Fred B. Alcock and a group of fellow theatrical enthusiasts staged Tons of Money, produced by Maurice Welcher at the Carlton Theatre in Newland. This first production was a roaring success; it ran for a week, 1,850 people came to see it, and the princely sum of £101 (nearly £5,500 in today's money) was raised in aid of the Yeatman Hospital in Sherborne. Following that, The Players started to establish themselves with spectacular productions of No, No Nanette in 1935, Night Must Fall in 1937 and The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1938.

With the onset of war in 1939 it seemed that the group would have to disband, but then the officers of the Queens Royal Regiment, who were billeted in Sherborne, decided to stage a pantomime for their men. APS was asked to provide support, and members of the company soon found themselves rehearsing with 16 muscular fairies in hats, blonde ringlets, ballet skirts and army boots. From this cooperation developed the Wartime Variety Shows that were performed in the surrounding villages where soldiers were billeted. Many artistes from the armed services took part in these shows, including a certain Lance Bombardier Harry Secombe. And the arrival in the town of The Royal Navy Auxillary Hospital in 1942 and the Americans in 1944 provided yet more actors to entertain the troops.

Rehearsals for Tons of Money took place in a small room in Abbey Road and subsequent pre-war plays were rehearsed at The Mermaid Inn in Bristol Rd. Since WWII the Players have had several homes, a hall in George St, the former Eldridge Pope brewery at the top of Cheap St, the Crown Inn (now the Newell French Bistro) in Greenhill, Sherborne House and, again, The Mermaid. Since 2011, thanks to long-term member and benefactor Malcolm Cockburn, our home has been in what is now the Sherborne Studio Theatre.

The Carlton Theatre (which was also a cinema) closed in 1961 and was demolished in 1989, its former site now being part of the Waitrose car park. No, No Nanette and Night Must Fall were performed in The Carlton, but in 1938 the company moved to the Digby Memorial Church Hall in Digby Rd for The Scarlet Pimpernel. Subsequent plays were all performed in the Church Hall until 1972, when Angels in Love was the first play to be performed at the newly built Digby Hall in Hound St. The Digby Hall was used by APS for all indoor productions until the spring of 2018, at which point the Sherborne Studio Theatre became our main venue.

In most years since 1946 APS have presented spring and autumn productions, sometimes with an outdoor summer production as well. A full list of plays can be found on our Past Productions page. We marked the change of century in style, with a series of outdoor Shakespeare productions, starting with The Tempest in 1999 (which we also took to Preveza in Greece) and ending with Twelfth Night in 2002. In 2009 we celebrated our 75th Anniversary with a revival of Tons of Money at the Digby Hall, combined with an exhibition of 75 years of memorabilia, and in 2024 we celebrated our 90th year with a staged play reading of an adaptation of the same play, entitled this time Loads of Lolly. Since 2022 we have endeavoured to present four APS productions each year in the Sherborne Studio theatre, and on occasions we host visiting artistes.