YORK Musical Theatre Company is on a recruitment drive for next spring's production of West Side Story at York Theatre Royal.

Company chairman Jim Welsman says: "Following our success in recruiting girls for our May show, Cabaret, we're keen to build on that success and hope that West Side Story will attract more young men to balance up the numbers. So, girls, we need your help in acquiring more men!

"We can't risk entering into a contract to perform the musical unless we have some certainty of being able to get enough young men to make up the two gangs - and we need at least 12 to 18 young men who are athletic and can sing in tune."

With that in mind, YMTC is holding two Meet The Company sessions next week: the first in the Basement Bar of City Screen, York, on Wednesday from 7.30pm to 8.30pm; the second in the York Theatre Royal dress circle bar on Saturday (July 19) from 12.30pm.

"The energetic and melodramatic West Side Story is still one of the best musicals ever created and was the finest musical film of the 1960s," says Jim.

"In this modern-day loose re-telling of Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet, set in the Upper West Side of New York City in the late-1950s, the battle between the two rival gangs provides some of the most exciting scenes ever seen on stage.

"Do you want to be part of it?

"If so, we want potential new members to attend next week's meetings, when we hope as many members as possible will come along to socialise with each other and the newcomers."

West Side Story will run for a fortnight from May 4, 2004, at the Theatre Royal

Updated: 11:16 Friday, July 11, 2003