YORK Theatre Royal is to host the Dune Jazz Festival for the first time this summer.

Run in association with J-Night promoter David Porter and Dune Records, the two-day event in the main house will open with A Tribute To Billie Holiday on July 29 at 7.30pm, when singer Zara McFarlane will be accompanied by jazz luminaries Denys Baptiste, Soweto Kinch, Abram Wilson, Andrew McCormack, Gary Crosby and Rod Youngs.

Saxophonist Kinch and trumpeter Wilson will be particularly busy, also performing in the two concerts on July 30: the Soweto Kinch Band's early evening of jazz, hip hop and rap at 5.30pm and Jazz Jamaica Motown Reloaded at 8.30pm. Led by Gary Crosby, the Jazz Jamaica All Stars have already done wonders with their union of jazz and ska music; now Crosby, Baptiste, Kinch, Wilson and eight more musicians besides embrace the legacy of the Motown label.

The Theatre Royal's company in residence, Pilot Theatre, will link up with the Bolton Octagon Theatre for the opening production of The Studio summer season, Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing, from April 26 to 30. Directed by Marcus Romer, this urban fairytale by the writer of Gimme Gimme Gimme portrays two schoolboys falling in love on a Manchester council estate in the suffocating heat of July.

New playwright Adam Canavan will make his York debut with Third Finger Left Hand, presented by Nine Lives Productions and Richard Jordan Productions from May 11 to June 4. The love/hate relationship of two sisters growing up in North West England is played out to the music of Northern Soul and Tamla Motown, in a Seventies' world where they love their mother but live in fear of their violent father.

Reform Theatre Company will visit the Theatre Royal for the first time from July 7 to 9 to perform David Bown's Stand. On a Saturday afternoon Phil and Kev begin to question their continual attendance at United's tedious games; Janet and Laura suffer similar self-doubt while undressing the men down the local with their words and looks. When the four come together for a Saturday night out, a shocking climax awaits.

Red Ladder Theatre Company will follow up last September's Silent Cry with another Madani Younis play, Free Falling, on July 12 and 13. As the hot summer burns, a generation is in free fall and youth is searching for beauty and a future in a story of success and failure.

For tickets, ring 01904 623568.

Updated: 16:13 Thursday, March 17, 2005