Nearly 100 years old and still going strong!
We are members of the National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA).
Hartley Players staged their first performance in 1926 and have put on two or three shows each year ever since. We try to do ‘something for everyone’ including comedies, farces, straight plays, dramas and musicals. Most of our performances take place in Hartley Village Hall (which used to be the WI Hall) in Ash Road, Hartley, where we have the luxury of tiered seating.
We rarely enter drama festivals as these do not usually coincide with our performance dates. However, back in 1992 we decided that our production of Agnes of God was so good that we should have entered it in the Kent Full Length Play Festival, so we saved all the scenery and rebuilt it in Spring 1993 for a special one-off performance and adjudication, subsequently going on to win first prize in the finals at the Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone and the National Operatic and Dramatic Society (NODA) Ron Kench Shield for Drama.
We have also been nominated for various awards by NODA, who send representatives to see as many of our productions as possible. Our most recent awards:
- NODA South East Region’s award for Best Drama for Glorious! – 2023
- NODA South East Region’s award for Best Drama for Blithe Spirit – 2022
- NODA South East Region’s award for Best Drama for Entertaining Angels – 2019
- NODA South East Region’s Drama Accolade of Excellence for Quartet – 2018
- NODA South East Region’s Drama Accolade of Excellence for Yes, Prime Minister – 2015
- NODA South East Region’s Drama Accolade of Excellence for Plaza Suite – 2013
- NODA South East Region’s Drama Accolade of Excellence for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – 2011
- NODA London’s Flame Award for An Inspector Calls – 2009 (for excellence of set design and realisation, directing and acting, thus achieving an accomplished and stylish production of real drama)
- NODA London’s Shinfield Award for best scenery for An Inspector Calls – 2009
- NODA London’s best production and best scenery for Absurd Person Singular in 2004.
New members (either onstage or backstage) are always welcome. For more information see Become a member.
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Hartley Players 
Congratulations to the director and cast of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This 2011 production was awarded the National Operatic and Dramatic Association South Region’s Drama Accolade of Excellence.