LOUISE Denison can spare barely ten minutes, such are the demands of running this summer’s Stage Experience show at the Grand Opera House in York.

Acting, dancing and singing talent aged ten to 21 is taking part in a full-scale musical production of Frank Loesser’s Guys And Dolls, a show that is being put together in 13 days under the direction of the very experienced Louise and her new assistant, Sam Coulson, a York actor now cutting his teeth at the Royal Academy of Drama in London.

This is Louise’s third year in charge of the Stage Experience summer project, and Guys And Doll and its tale of a group of small-time gamblers and the ladies in their lives is a joy to work on.

“Live theatre over the film every time,” she says. “It’s all about the reactions! It’s a very funny musical, one of the classic American Broadway comedies, and getting live laughter will always outweigh any cinematic reaction.

“The challenge is to get the young ones to understand the American sense of humour, which is nothing like the British sense of humour.”

Explain, please, Louise.

“Well, it’s the language of the humour. It’s more quick-fire, but then if it’s too quick, the English audience will be two beats behind, so it can become too fast for them,” says Louise.

“So the actors have to get the sense of humour, the dynamics and the timing right but also make sure that the audience keeps up with it. “The dialogue is very much New York, and the phrasing is different to English phrasing, so I keep telling the children not to put extra words in.”

While the show is driven by Nathan Detroit, Sky Masterson and Miss Adelaide, Louise wants her production to be very much an ensemble show.

“They’re such colourful characters that they have to bounce off the stage and I don’t just want that to be the principals but the full company,” she says. “That’s why I’ve given everyone parts to play, even in the chorus, rather than just being a generic chorus, as they’re playing characters who are larger than life, and they must be like that from the moment they’re on stage.”

• The Stage Experience production of Guys And Dolls will run at the Grand Opera House, York, from Thursday to Saturday, at 7.30pm nightly plus a 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Tickets are on sale at £13.50 for adults, £9.50 for children, on 0844 847 2322.