NO sooner do Pick Me Up Theatre finish staging Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story next Wednesday than the York company jump from the Fifties to the Sixties to present another American musical, Dogfight, for the next three days.

Both shows are directed by Robert Readman, although York actor George Stagnell has assisted on the second, a show based on the 1991 movie that starred River Phoenix in a story where "the whole damn world might change tomorrow, so we go for broke today".

Dogfight is set on November 21 1963, when three young Marines set out for one final boys' night of debauchery in San Francisco before their deployment to Vietnam. The group set up a "Dogfight", where each marine must find a date for a dance, the winner being the one who brings the ugliest girl.

Whereupon Corporal Eddie Birdlace meets Rose, an unassuming and idealistic waitress in a diner, who he enlists to win the cruel bet, but when she finds out the rules, she is understandably upset. As Eddie attempts to apologise, Holly re-writes the rules by opening his eyes to what really matters in life.

York Press:

Pick Me Up Theatre cast members in Dogfight

The show features music and lyrics by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek that was described by Time Out's review in New York as having "easily the most delicate, surprising, musically satisfying score since Spring Awakening".

All this detail is by way of introduction to a musical that is receiving its York premiere after its Broadway debut and subsequent London bow last year at the Southwark Playhouse. How typical of progressive director Robert Readman to spot a show on the rise, and to cast an actress with a matching trajectory.

Holly Surtees-Smith, from Wheldrake, will play Rose, the girl who first "absolutely snaps and slaps Eddie and says she hopes he dies in the war", but by the night's end they are going back to Rose's place. "But they're both awkward, as it's their first time and that's what makes Dogfight unusual and also what makes it really beautiful," says Holly.

She joined Readman's company a year ago and has progressed impressively quickly. "I was in Ghost: The Musical, as a hospital ghost, and I was in Annie!, playing Star To Be, when Robert directed it for York Stage Musicals," says 18-year-old Holly, who has just finished her B-Tech in musical theatre at York College.

She also appeared in Nik Briggs's tremendous production of Hairspray for York Stage Musicals in late March as Tammy, and now she is setting her sights on a professional acting career. "I'm looking to audition for drama school," she reveals.

Holly will be keeping herself busy on the York stage with Pick Me Up in the meantime. "I'm going to be in The Addams Family at the Grand Opera House in October," she says. Yoo could probably guess who she will be playing: Wednesday Addams of course.

Pick Me Up Theatre's Dogfight runs at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from August 13 to 15, 7.30pm, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or pickmeuptheatre.com