Keith Irons, 63, from Darlington, joined after decades working in the print trade.
“At the time I was driving a minibus because I needed to earn some money and someone sent me a link for the auditions,” he said.
“With Ensemble 84 I got six months training and I earned a wage.”
The theatre company is funded through Durham County Council, Arts Council England and the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund., external
Its name is a nod to the 1984 miners’ strike, a defining moment in the history of British coal mining.
The closure three years later of Horden Colliery, once one of the largest in Britain, precipitated the area’s decline into one of high unemployment where child poverty is twice the national average.