In 1972, the Imlay Preschool Mothers' Club was, as usual, trying to find ways of fund raising with the least amount of effort and the greatest monetary reward. Eleanor Beasley came forward with the idea of a Music Hall.

 

Arrangements were made with Kenny Lau who owned the Eastern Jade Restaurant (now gone) which also had a function room. A lot of hard work and much fun later the first Music Hall Merimbula had ever seen was staged for two nights running. It was soon after this that some of the people involved in the first show were approached to stage a Black and White Theatre Restaurant in January 1974. The show ran over four nights with a cast of 14. Dinner and the show cost the princely sum of $5!

 

The seed was sown for an amateur group to be formed and in January 1974 rehearsals began for Gilbert and Sullivan's "Trial by Jury", followed in December of that year by "The Mikado". It was during this time that the Spectrum Theatre Group was constituted.

 

Since then, the group has staged an average of two shows a year.In 1980, the Spectrum Little Actors Theatre (SPLAT) was formed under the auspices of Spectrum to encourage children's participation in theatre. It was disbanded three years later.

 

The group eventually continued .....more info coming soon!