THREE actors from York are taking principal roles in Leeds Amateur Operatic Society’s production of 42nd Street at Leeds Grand Theatre from next Tuesday.

John Hall will play Broadway show director Julian Marsh; Katie Melia, chorus girl Phyllis Dale; and Tanya Willis, chorus girl Lorraine Fleming, under the direction of Louise Denison, who is best known in York for directing each summer’s Stage Experience musical at the Grand Opera House.

John made his LAOS debut in 2013 as the Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose in a year when he also appeared as Mr Bumble in York Light Opera Company’s Oliver! at York Theatre Royal and Boone in York Stage Musicals’ Whistle Down The Wind at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.

John has been appointed director of the York Light Youth, a York Light Opera Company satellite, and his first show with the new company, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, was staged last October at the JoRo. He is now working on YLY’s forthcoming shows, High School Musical and Les Miserables.

Katie will be making her LAOS debut after playing a series of roles in York, such as Charlotte in Oliver!, Liesel in The Sound Of Music, Patsy in Crazy For You and her favourite part to date, dance teacher Mavis in HAT Productions’ debut show, Stepping Out, directed by John Hall at the JoRo in June 2012.

Katie studied at Kirkham Henry Performing Arts Centre, Malton, York St John University and the international visual theatre company Dog Troep.

“I’ve had the privilege of working with writer-director Howard Barker in The Fence at York Theatre Royal in 2005 and I’ve performed as a dancer in the Grand Opera House pantomime,” she says.

Tanya, who trained at S.L.P College in Leeds, was tap dance champion of England in 2000 and a junior associate at the Royal Ballet School. She is one of the original members of Louise Denison’s Damuus Dance Co and performed in the national tour of Singing In The Rain.

Tanya now runs the Willis Academy of Dance in Clifford and Boston Spa and Melody Bear Pre- School Ballet in Harrogate and guest teaches at Scala Performing Arts Stage School in Leeds. She is also Louise Denison’s assistant chorographer for Stage Experience, working on Guys And Dolls, West Side Story, Fiddler On The Roof, Footloose and this summer’s show, Our House.

Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble’s musical follows the glamorous life of theatre producer Julian Marsh as he tries to stage a Broadway musical at the height of the Great Depression in New York. Tensions between leading lady Dorothy Brock and enthusiastic newcomer Peggy Sawyer begin at the auditions, but will the show go on and will it be a success?

Find out when Leeds Amateur Operatic Society’s production runs from next Tuesday to Saturday at 7.15pm nightly plus 2.30pm on the last day. Box office: 0844 848 2700 or leedsgrandtheatre.com