The Director and Founder of Act’in Theatre has created a singular home for French- language acting in London, a space where every participant is free to explore, evolve and become fully themselves.

Some founders build around a product. Candice Desmet built around the human being. As Director and Founder of Act’in Theatre, she has shaped a space where anyone may step onto the stage, discover unexplored facets of themselves and grow at their own pace, held by a culture of trust.

At the core of her work lies a conviction she expresses with quiet certainty: “I do not believe that we should strive for perfection. I believe we should strive for authenticity, learn to evolve with our environment and accept the passing of time.”

That conviction informs how she coaches, how she leads and how she regards the future of theatre. The qualities that make a person singular, their presence, their sensitivity, their spontaneity, are in her view more precious than ever, and her entire practice is devoted to bringing them into the light.

A Shared Need, A New Stage

The story of Act’in Theatre begins with Candice’s devotion to the craft. On arriving in London, she was determined to continue her training, for an actor’s practice stays alive only through constant cultivation. What she sought was a French-speaking acting workshop equal to her ambitions, and the city did not yet offer one.

She soon recognised that she was far from alone. Others shared the same aspiration: a place to train as actors in French, within an environment both nurturing and stimulating. A personal wish had revealed a collective one, and with it, the opportunity to create something of her own.

And so she founded it. Act’in Theatre drew, almost instinctively, those who were seeking what she herself had sought. As the community grew, Candice continued to refine her own practice and acting techniques, while the communication and marketing she put in place established the organisation’s presence and attracted a growing community of students.

That shared need, first felt personally and then recognised in so many others, remains the enduring heartbeat of Act’in Theatre.

The Stage, Unguarded

What distinguishes her approach is whom it welcomes. Most of those she works with practise theatre as a pursuit of passion rather than profession.

Some aspire to act professionally; many more come to explore the art form and carry its techniques into their daily lives and working worlds.

Her mission is to place professional acting tools within reach of all, whatever their ambitions. There are no auditions and no competition, and so the room is free of comparison and the weight of performance. What remains is the freedom to take risks, to experiment and to step beyond the familiar.

In that atmosphere, defences soften. For a time, participants may set aside the roles they inhabit in daily life: the title, the status, the responsibilities, the way others perceive them. Released from those identities, they encounter themselves anew, uncover unfamiliar dimensions of who they are and rediscover a sense of freedom and spontaneity.

She regards herself, first and foremost, as a guide. She provides the professional technique and the conditions in which creativity can flourish; the creative voice remains the participant’s own, never shaped to a prescribed style. Trust is the foundation, among participants and between them and her. “It is this trust that creates a space where everyone can dare to take risks, grow and, above all, be fully themselves.”

The Comfort Zone and the Barrier Zone

Candice believes in growth that endures. Her coaching begins with a genuine conversation, an unhurried effort to understand an actor’s background, aspirations and strengths, as well as the areas they wish to develop. From there she works in months, sometimes years, for that is the timescale on which real trust is built and on which she comes to understand what each individual requires.

At the centre of her method lies a considered map of two territories. The first is the comfort zone: the feelings, roles and scenarios an actor slips into effortlessly. The second she calls the “barrier zone”, the material that asks more of them. Together, they fortify and extend the first while patiently exploring the second. In time, the actor’s range deepens, and they approach an ever-wider repertoire of roles with assurance and authenticity.

Commitment, consistency and regularity make this possible. “An actor is a living, constantly evolving material,” she observes, and she grants each individual the time required to arrive at greater truth in performance.

Direction Without Imposition

Candice holds the larger vision: the play, the ensemble, the production as a whole. Each actor, in turn, develops a personal vision of their character. Her art lies in bringing the two into harmony.

She first establishes the artistic direction. She then entrusts each actor with the script, the defining traits of their character and the context of the play, together with the time and latitude to build the role on their own terms. They explore it from every angle, make their own choices, take creative risks and learn from each attempt, the occasional misstep included. She calls this phase “the creative experience”.

Throughout, she observes both the individual and the ensemble, for every contribution enriches her understanding of the work. She then steps back and draws the threads together. Many choices endure because they sit naturally within the production; others are refined in service of the whole, always preserving what makes each actor distinctive.

In her words: “For me, directing does not mean imposing. It means creating a framework that is clear enough to allow creativity to emerge freely and then guiding that creativity so that it can naturally find its place within a collective vision.”

“How Are You?”

Every workshop Candice leads opens with a simple, attentive question, posed to each participant: “How are you?” Alongside exercises and conversation, it allows her to sense whether someone is ready to venture further that day or would be better served by remaining on familiar ground. Her guiding principle is to honour who each actor is in that moment. A person’s emotional state and season of life shape what they can reach, often beneath conscious awareness. When she senses hesitation, she respects it rather than pressing, trusting that it will ease in its own time. Breakthroughs, in her experience, emerge from the journey as a whole and from trust cultivated week after week.

Each person in her studio, she says, should feel free to go further when ready, “but also that they have the right not to.”The same care informs how she guides actors through setbacks. Her workshops carry no financial, professional or reputational stakes, yet a moment that does not unfold as hoped can still feel deeply personal.

Candice ensures that every experience becomes positive and constructive: an occasion to learn, to discover and to move forward. She respects that each person arrives with their own story and their own rhythm. Her aim is a space where actors feel secure enough to take risks, begin again and continue to grow “without allowing the outcome to define their sense of self-worth.”

The Founder’s Measure

Founding an organisation has lent her leadership a further dimension.

Candice understands that a company and an individual operate on different scales. An organisation answers to economic, social and global forces far larger than any single life, and so it moves to its own tempo. At times an individual’s needs take precedence; at others, the organisation’s objectives lead.

She navigates that balance with understanding and adaptability. “People need organisations, just as organisations need people,” she says, and that relationship, in her view, must rest on trust and fairness on both sides. Staying attuned to the rhythm of every individual, and to that of the organisation itself, is a reflection she returns to daily.

Culture, she believes, is what keeps both alive: the capacity to reinvent oneself, to remain curious and to keep exploring.

What Technology Cannot Replace

Candice regards artificial intelligence with open curiosity. She acknowledges both its promise and its limits, and believes the task is to integrate it with intelligence rather than resist it. She also perceives an elegant paradox: the further AI advances, the more it will illuminate what only human beings can offer, their presence, energy, sensitivity, lived experience and spontaneity.

Hence her commitment to cultivating all that makes us human, from authenticity and sensitivity to the “handmade” and, above all, imperfection. “Imperfections are not necessarily flaws; they can be what makes a person or a creation unique, alive and deeply moving.” For the actor of the future, she considers resilience indispensable: the ability to evolve with the times while remaining anchored in what is uniquely human. “The more technology progresses, the more important it will become to understand what it cannot replace.”

The Transformative Stage

Asked which transformations have moved her most, Candice speaks less of performances than of lives. Many arrive still discovering who they are, what they want and how they function. Acting calls for that self-knowledge, for understanding oneself is what allows it to be channelled into a role. Once people begin to listen to themselves, profound change may follow. She has seen participants change careers, move to another country or make significant life decisions, all because they had begun to understand who they were and what they truly needed.

The effect extends outward. The more people understand and accept their own contradictions, emotions, strengths and fragilities, the more readily they embrace those of others.

Inhabiting a character invites an actor into new ways of thinking, feeling and acting, and understanding a character can shed new light on people in everyday life who once seemed distant. For Candice, this is what elevates theatre beyond an artistic discipline. In her hands, it becomes an instrument of self-knowledge, empathy and personal transformation.

Time to Be Human

Her vision for the years ahead returns to a single, generous principle: place people at the centre and give them the space to express themselves. Above all, that means granting them time.

Technology, communication and expectation move at speed; human growth keeps its own rhythm. She intends to embrace the tools of the present while preserving spaces where people can simply be, explore and create. It is also why she is committed to demystifying theatre. It belongs not only to those who wish to act professionally, but to anyone seeking to know themselves better, feel at ease in their own skin, build confidence and invest in themselves. She offers, too, a hopeful reflection: if people take that time for themselves, perhaps they may also help shape a world that is “a little more open, honest and coherent”.

Her vision, in her own words, is refreshingly clear. “Ultimately, my vision is quite simple: to use the tools of our time without losing what makes us deeply human. To take our time, embrace imperfection and give each person enough space to become fully themselves.”