FOUR weeks of summer-holiday rehearsal for the York Theatre Royal Youth Programme bear fruit in next week's performances of The Chrysalids.

Forty young theatre enthusiasts, aged 11 to 19, have taken on a mixture of acting and production roles to stage David Harrower's adaptation of the John Wyndham novel, under the direction of Jill Adamson, director of Youth Theatre Yorkshire, who is directing the Theatre Royal Youth Programme for the first time.

She chose the play with Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden. "He asked me if there was anything that I'd wanted to do for a long time, and this was one of the plays I hadn't yet done from the BT Connection Scheme, which I've used a lot for Youth Theatre Yorkshire shows.

"It's a very visual piece so I knew Youth Theatre Yorkshire didn't have the resources to do it but the Theatre Royal does."

Those resources have extended to actors from The Three Musketeers repertory production running workshops, including Martin Barrass on improvisation; Phoebe Soteriades and Matt Rixon on characterisation; Anna Northam and Richard Ashton on text and narrative; and Oliver Boot and John Paul Connolly on stage combat.

"It's been very enlightening and rewarding, and the question-and-answer sessions at the end have been just as valuable because they have put the actor's job in a very real perspective," says Jill.

"Doing those question times, the youth programme members have also built up a relationship with the repertory actors and the theatre building, so they really feel part of what's going on at the Theatre Royal."

That sense of inclusion ties in with the futuristic play's theme. The Chrysalids depicts the post-nuclear society of Waknuk, a pure society ruled by a religion that banishes any child, animal or plant with an abnormality to the Fringes with the status of a mutant. Yet ultimately the mutants are a force for good, showing that all people are the same regardless of imperfections.

"In rehearsal, people have mentioned ethnic cleansing and Nazi Germany, and they've also talked about the chrysalid state, a state of transition and, of course everyone in the youth programme is in state of transition from childhood to adulthood."

The Chrysalids, York Theatre Royal, September 6 to 8, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568.