The group was incorporated in 1974 but it had been presenting small productions for a decade before that in church halls and other venues.

Peter Smith has been president of Queanbeyan Players since 2009. His association with the company goes back a lot longer: his first show with the Players was HMS Pinafore in 1993.

A former CSIRO researcher who became a college science teacher when his division was closed, he has long turned to music as an outlet for creative expression. He sang in his university choir and took private lessons. Although he has worked with other Canberra theatre companies he was particularly attracted to Queanbeyan Players because of its strong focus on the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan - they've done all 14 of them, from the most famous to the more obscure.

Once, Smith remembers, he was singing the policeman's song in The Pirates of Penzance and sang the second verse instead of the first.

"It rather confused the choreography of the poor line of policemen behind me!"

He says that in the early years with members like Norma Roach (who's still involved with the company) Queanbeyan Players presented a lot of melodramas and plays but by the 1970s the focus had shifted more to operettas and musicals, though still with an occasional play and also some locally written shows.

"We've always been in the mainstream of American and English musical theatre," Smith says.

Among the musicals they've presented – some more than once – have been The Pajama Game, Me and My Girl, Annie Get Your Gun, Brigadoon and Camelot.

This year was no exception with productions of Wright and Forrest's Kismet and Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music: while the former was a "line-ball"in terms of the box office, the latter was a big hit for the company ("We had full houses for the last several performances'). But in recent years they've also presented more pop/rock-oriented shows including Jesus Christ Superstar and Fame., both of which were also successes, and Return to the Forbidden Planet, which ended in a financial loss. But then, every show is a risk for every company.

It's in the earlier musical eras that Smith feels Queanbeyan Players has its strongest place: operettas like The Mikado and classic West End and Broadway musicals like Salad Days and The Music Man.

"We're a community organisation to a large degree – one of our strengths is a big support base of people who are involved in doing productions."

And that's not just on stage but in the artistic and technical aspects of production too including sets and costumes.

"There are a lot of people in an amateur capacity who have an interest in lighting and sound and that's a very major component of the budget, a lot of money."

Queanbeyan Players doesn't have any government grants to support it so it relies on box office and the goodwill and hard work of volunteers - mamy of them longtime supporters - to keep it going and helping to raise funds. And they are always looking for new people to get involved, especially younger ones.

"People are getting older …. It's always an issue with set building and so on."

For a long time it put on shows in the old Nova Cinema and then for nearly 20 years in the Queanbeyan Bicentennial Hall, , and now uses the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, which opened in 2008.

"We had a good deal to do with building the theatre – we put $50,000 of our own money into it, quite a contribution … and we had a lot to do with the design," Smith says.

The first show for 2015 will be another of the classic Broadway musicals, Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady. Queanbeyan Players, it seems, will continue to move forward while frequently looking back. It's a strategy that's helped them survive for half a century despite the increase in the number of theatre companies competing for participants and audiences.

Smith says, "We're more open than some of the other companies, we ask for proposals for shows and directors from people who are interested and assess them on their merits and what we want to do. We always hold open auditions. We don't have precasting. We like to see what's out there and assemble the best cast possible."

And in the end, Smith says of Queanbeyan Players' longevity: "We just persist. "

For more information about Queanbeyan Players visit qp.org.au.