YORK Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre are to mount their third large-scale community production next June.

Performed by a cast of community volunteer actors, Bridget Foreman's play will tell the largely unknown story of York’s suffragette movement and the ongoing struggle for female empowerment, drawing on historical research to set the drama within the national suffragette campaign and in the present day.

Foreman, who co-wrote the 2015 community play In Fog And Falling Snow with fellow York playwright Mike Kenny, will work with a team of directors, among them Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and the Pilot Theatre team that collaborated on Blood + Chocolate in 2013 and In Fog and Falling Snow last summer.

Professor Krista Cowman, from the University of Lincoln, will act as historical advisor on the script after advising on the 2015 British film drama Suffragette and writing extensively about the York movement.

Next summer's new work will build on the template of the Theatre Royal and Pilot community co-productions Blood + Chocolate, on the streets of York, and In Fog And Falling Snow, in the purpose-built Signal Box Theatre at the National Railway Museum.

Performed on a spectacular scale by a cast of around 150 volunteers, the action will be staged on York's streets before moving inside to the Theatre Royal stage for the first time.

From Heworth housewives to railway workers and from teenage arsonists to the Prime Minister, there will be parts for women and men of all ages to take part in presenting this moment in York’s history.

The suffragette movement divided friends, families and neighbours. At its height in 1913, when some of the play will be set, the country was in daily uproar and outrage at the daring and frequently dangerous acts of the suffragettes. In York, apparently ordinary women with homes, husbands and children ran safe houses, organised meetings, smashed windows and fire-bombed pillar boxes.

It was risky and for many exhilarating, but until now, this story has not been told. "The suffragette movement was about far more than votes for women," says Bridget Foreman. "It was a demand for social change; a protest movement that crossed barriers of age, sex and class. Many paid a huge price as they fought for the rights that we now take for granted. They risked their lives in their quest for many of the freedoms we enjoy today."

York actors Barbara Marten and Andrina Carroll have been involved heavily in the concept and development of the piece and will appear in next year's production. "2018 will see the 100-year anniversary of women receiving the vote," says Barbara. "We want to celebrate this hard-won victory and celebrate some of the local women who made it possible. York had its own heroines and local research has uncovered a real piece of forgotten history. It feels really important to honour the memory of these women as we approach 2018."

York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre, in association with York St John University, will work on the production in tandem with a York women’s charity, the Kyra Women’s Project. Founded in 2013 and run by women, the project provides a safe space and support centre for women, offering encouragement, companionship, information, training and a sense of belonging from women from all backgrounds.

Kyra trustee Annie Stirk says: "We're extremely pleased to be working in partnership with York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre on this piece of theatre. One of our objectives at Kyra is to promote equality and inclusion for women, a struggle which has been ongoing since the suffragette movement began at the beginning of the last century and which continues to this day."

Anyone interested in being involved with the Suffragette Project production, whether as a performer or backstage, can sign up and register their interest online at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/event/suffragettes