About US
HCTG is run by Jonas Hurst. The Hurst Children’s Theatre Group (HCTG) was established over 70 years ago in London by his Grandmother. It has always been a family-run group which is what makes it different to most other Drama schools. His Father, Mike Hurst (one of the Springfields and a well known record producer), took the Theatre Group to Henley where it still flourishes today. Each of his 3 sisters run their own versions of HCTG in Buckinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire. Jonas’s classes have been running in Harpenden and St Albans for over 15 years and we have over 500 children across all of our classes.
And we’re proud to say we’re multiple-time winners of Mum’s Guide to Harpenden best activity for children. You can read more about our teachers below and read testimonials from parents and children on the ‘what they say’ page.
JONAS is a qualified teacher and professional musician. He spent 10 years as a TV Presenter (sky news, FIVE, EUROSPORT etc) and founded ‘Presenters Inc’. He has 2 gold records as a singer (one for the movie Absolute Beginners, with David Bowie) and has sung professionally around the World. He and his dad write the scripts. His 3 daughters all attend and help at classes. He loves working with children and he’s a bit of kid himself!
RUTH is married to Jonas and therefore also married to HCTG. She used to be a primary school teacher and is now a major part of everything we do. She co-ordinates all of the cast and all of the helpers/volunteers at our shows. She also makes all of the costumes! And always with a smile on her face!
RUTH is one of our drama and LAMDA teachers. A local Mum with 15 years experience working as an actor on stage and screen, internationally and with the BBC and ITV. She has also had starring roles in the West End! Ruth is an experienced LAMDA teacher and musician – she can do it all! She’s really keen to pass on her skills to the children of HCTG.
India teaches a lot of our classes. She studied at Tring park and the London College of Music. She has performed in the West End and she’s a professional recording artist. india loves teaching children of all ages. She loves to sing, dance and act. her energy and enthusiasm is infectious and rubs off on the children in the classes. fun, mad and loud – in a good way!
LAUREN is one of our LAMDA teachers. A former actress from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. We run our Lamda classes on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Lauren knows all there is to know about Lamda and she does a fantastic job preparing them for their exams/grades with an extremely high pass rate.
CLAIRE is our administrator. She runs the office and keeps everything in order. She’s on top of the waiting list, email enquiries, classes, bookings, tickets, fees and everything else. We don’t know what we’d do without her. Any questions – ask Claire. She knows ALL the answers!
THIS is the band! Andy, Mike, Jane and JOnas (Left to right). They’ve been playing at all of our shows for 10 years and counting. ANDY is a professional DRUmmer, jane is a music teacher and mike (on guitar) ORGANIsES our charity concerts with Jonas (in wig!). they make the shows even more magical for the cast + Audience and they’re great friends of HCTG!
The Crew. We always have an amazing crew at showtime -run by Alicia, Tash, Esther and Amelie Hurst. (all former hctg attendees). Not to mention our regular class assistants during term-time: Mia, Nancy, sally, katie, gemma, ellie, Darcey, sophie and jemima – who aRe all fab!
All our teachers are DBS checked and fully insured.