YORK Light Youth may be presenting Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical, but their show is very much Cats not Kittens, despite the young cast.

"We applied to be the first company ever to stage Cats in York and we're delighted to be doing that," says director John Hall, whose York premiere opens tonight at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre for a run of ten performances until November 7.

After staging Les Miserables: School Edition and Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, John and his regular compadré in musicals, musical director Mike Thompson, have assembled a cast of 34, all aged 11 to 19, to present Cats, the long-running show based on T S Eliot's Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats.

"There was no age-group limit on the licence, but it does state we have to do a non-replica version, so you can't copy anything from the London or Broadway productions," says John. "Aside from the musical arrangements, which are stipulated from the Broadway version, we have to make everything just for our production, which has been interesting."

"I would say it's the most difficult show we've ever done as it's a sung-through show and a dance-through show, rather than with dialogue, so all the production elements have to be aligned to the music."

This makes for an all-important partnership between John and the show's choreographer, Hayley Patrick-Copeland, who held the same post for Honk! in her first show with the company and has newly added Copeland to her surname after her wedding. "The choreographer is 'God' in Cats, so as the director I sometimes have to take a back seat to get an overall view of the show," says John.

"Hayley started with Tread The Boards Theatre Company and did 42nd Street with York Light as a dancer, and when we needed a new choreographer after Chloe Shipley went off to college, Hayley was ideal for the role.

"We've got some very, very accomplished dancers in the company, which you obviously need with a show like Cats, but we also needed some talented intermediates too, so we had a month where 60 people who were interested in auditioning for the show came to dance workshops and singing workshops."

This work with Hayley, Mike and John led to high-quality auditions. "We selected 34 out of the 60 to be in the show and that figure was because we thought that was the maximum number that felt right on the Joseph Rowntree stage," says Mike.

"This time we don't have any understudies, but we do have cover casting, where one actor, Lucas Wells, has learnt other roles," says John. "He's also our dance captain and has been studying at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance for a year."

The role of Grizabella, The Glamour Cat, goes to Naomi Halliday. "She's turned 18, probably one of the eldest in the cast, so she brings maturity to that part, which it really needs," says Mike. "What Naomi's Grizabella has to do is act Memory throughout the song. Not once do you want to hear karaoke and with Naomi you definitely won't."

Cats will demand much of its young cast. "This is a show with a 'triple threat'," says Mike. "You have to be a good singer, a good dancer and a good actor, and I think working on Boublil and Schonberg's Les Miserables last year has really helped the cast.

"What we've also done over the rehearsal period is work on strengthening their voices; they've been building them up for the ten shows and I haven't got any worries over anyone losing their voice during the run."

For practical reasons, York Light Youth will be using the set design and costumes first seen in Louise Denison's production of Cats at Wakefield Theatre Royal. "Louise also runs the Stage Experience summer school each year at the Grand Opera House in York, and when I went through to Wakefield to see Cats, I absolutely loved it," says John.

"The design theme was a dilapidated ruin of a circus and the look of the show was distressed clothes, vaguely steam punk, which worked really well."

"So what we've done is hire the stage design but to do vaguely different things with it," adds Mike. "Wakefield had a cast of 42, we have 34, and we're going to use absolutely everything from their costume box."

York Light Youth presents Cats, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight until November 7, 7.30pm nightly except Sunday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: thelittleboxoffice.com/yorklightyouth; jrtheatre.co.uk or yorklight.com

Newsflash

BEN Papworth will swap playing cello in the 15-strong Cats orchestra for taking over Sam Rippon's roles as Bustapha Jones, Asparagus and Growltiger for Monday and Tuesday's performances. Sam has to head south to sit his Oxford University entrance exams.