LYDIA Bradd could not more different from her troubled character, Carmen Diaz, in Fame: The Musical, the 2017 Stage Experience summer production at the Grand Opera House, York.

Fame is the inspiring story of a group of diverse students that commit to four years of gruelling artistic and academic work in New York City’s High School of Performing Arts. The show follows the class from their admission to their graduation, charting their struggles, fears and triumphs – from prejudice to substance abuse – as they navigate the worlds of music, drama and dance.

Lydia, from Calcutt, Knaresborough, is heading into the third year of her musical theatre and professional dance course at the Urdang Academy, in Angel, Islington, North London. Earlier she had moved from Harrogate Ladies' College to do her sixth-form studies in theatre, dance, history and the performing arts at St Aidan's, the Harrogate high school with a wonderful reputation for its arts department.

"Carmen was the role I had in mind I wanted to play, as I'm training in musical theatre, and all the singing, dancing and acting makes this such a great part," says 20-year-old Lydia, who began rehearsals under director-choreographer Louise Denison last Saturday. "Carmen is completely different from me: she's a very fame-obsessed girl; I just want to do something that I've always wanted to do.

"Carmen doesn't care about her training very much; she just wants to be out there getting the money, climbing the social hierarchy to get to the top to be with the people she thinks she should be with in the business, rather than being at the Fame Academy, but she's going about it the wrong way.

"Me? I work very hard and have done since I was very young and I've been very privileged to get to where I am today, doing the things I've done so far. I have a very strong mind about what I want to do: I'd love to be in the West End and doing touring shows, and everything I've done so far has been important in building up experience for that."

Lydia is taking part in the Grand Opera House Stage Experience for the third successive year and has been involved in Louise Denison's shows since she was seven, first attending Scala Kids School of Performing Arts in Horsforth and then performing in her Harrogate St Andrews Players and Leeds Amateur Operatic Society productions.

York Press:

Leap to it! Max Mulrenan's Tyrone does the split jump above fellow Fame: The Musical principals Finn East (Joe Vegas), left, Lydia Bradd (Carmen Diaz), Charlotte McCamley (Serena Katz) and Luke Wilby (Nick Piazza). Picture: David Harrison

"At Stage Experience, I love seeing new talent coming up, working with people I know from the last two years, and it's lovely to be with them again as we all have chemistry together on stage, and it's great to be working with all the creative team again too," she says.

Louise Denison is directing a Stage Experience production of Fame for the second time, working with a company of 60. "This cast is incredibly young, especially in the ensemble," she says. "But they're basically telling their own story and playing people around their own age, which is always much easier, and it's interesting that it's been so popular with young people when it's 35 years since the TV series.

"The show has a really important message for our time, when there are all these talent shows where people seemingly become famous overnight, which is what Carmen wants, making a name for herself, but the opening song is Hard Work, and that's very telling. There's no easy route."

Joining Lydia among the Fame principals will be Finn East, taking over as Joe Vegas after Conor Mellor took up the irresistible chance to work as a cruise-ship entertainer before rehearsals began, and the 14-year-old Max Mulrenan as Tyrone. "We've been very lucky with Finn; he played Jud Fry in Oklahoma! last year and he's dropped into Fame so quickly. We started on Saturday, he joined us on Sunday, and his performance couldn't be any more different from his Jud Fry," says Louise.

"Max Mulrenan has been in our shows for the past four years; he's only 14 but he's doing an absolutely fantastic job. He has the ability; he's an all-rounder and he's stepping up to the challenge fabulously well."

Fame has its own stories, but what a joy that each production produces fresh ones, like those of Lydia, Finn and Max.

Stage Experience presents Fame: The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, August 3 to 5, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york