SIX brand new plays will take centre stage at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre in an evening of rehearsed readings on May 16.

Second Stage will bring together excerpts from five plays, plus one complete short play, that have been submitted to the SJT’s literary department. All will be performed as script-in-hand rehearsed readings.

They include plays by established writers Deborah McAndrew (Yen) and Sean Cook (Postcards From The Cliff) and a collaboration between Andrew Martin, David Secombe and Jack Tarlton (The Lost Lands Of Arthur Conan Doyle); one from Scarborough writer Sue Wilding (A Ghost You Can See), and two by actors, Michael Billington (Dino) and Simon Paisley Day (Joy Lane).

Artistic director Paul Robinson says: “This is the perfect opportunity for audiences to see some of the best new work that has landed at the SJT over the past few months. It’s a real mix of work with one overriding feature: quality. Do come along so you can say you saw it here first!”

Novelist Andrew Martin is best known for the Jim Stringer mysteries, not least The Last Train To Scarborough, a story adapted for the SJT in 2014. Deborah McAndrew works regularly with Northern Broadsides; her adaptation of Cyrano was seen at the SJT in April. Sean Cook has had short plays performed at Theatre503, Southwark Playhouse and The Space and a full-length piece presented at Ashcroft, Croydon.

Sue Wilding has written many plays for performance locally and further afield, such as Flash, Bam, Alakazam and Hello Darkness My Old Friend, and she is part of the SJT’s Write Stuff writers’ workshop. Simon Paisley Day was a regular cast member at the SJT in the 1990s, notably appearing as Gussie Fink-Nottle in Alan Ayckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s By Jeeves, the SJT’s opening production at the former Odeon cinema in 1996.

The 7pm event will involve two pieces being performed in the Round, two in the McCarthy auditorium and two in the theatre’s bar, with the audience moving from one performance space to the next and finally coming together in the bar for a discussion led by Paul Robinson. Directors will include Cheryl Govan, the SJT’s associate director for young people and the community.

Tickets cost £6.50 on 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com