Final auditions for Upstage Centre Youth Theatre’s northern premiere of Hairspray will be held today and tomorrow.

Dance auditions take place this evening from 6.30pm to 9pm, followed by singing auditions tomorrow from 1pm to 5.30pm, at 41 Monkgate, York, under the direction of Robert Readman.

“Performers aged 14 to 19 may apply, and you are eligible if you are still 19 on July 25,” says Robert, whose production will run from July 20 to 25 at the Alan Ayckbourn Theatre, York College. Please contact Upstage Centre for audition details via info@41monkgate.co.uk Robert is joined in the production team by musical director Dan Hield and choreographers Jessica Hardcastle and Chloe Shipley for the Upstage premiere of a musical written by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan with music and lyrics by Marc Shaiman and further lyrics by Scott Wittman.

In Hairspray, the Fifties are out and change is in the air in 1962 in Baltimore, where Tracy Turnblad, a big girl with big hair and an even bigger heart, has only one passion: to dance. She wins a spot on the local television dance programme, The Corny Collins Show, and is transformed overnight from outsider to irrepressible teen celebrity.

Questions need answering, however. Can a trend-setter in dance and fashion vanquish the programme’s reigning princess, win the heart of heartthrob Link Larkin, and integrate into a TV show without denting her hairdo?

“Only in Hairspray! Welcome to the Sixties,” says Robert.