THE name of The Secret Bank Holiday Play at York Theatre Royal can be revealed.

As announced to the community company of 200 at 9pm tonight, when they gathered to start the process of making the play over the next three days, they will be working on John Gay's The Beggar’s Opera, leading to a public performance on Monday at 7.30pm.

The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay, with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch, and is the only extant example of this once-thriving genre.

Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that were set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. Now, York Theatre Royal’s version of the play has been specially adapted by Richard Hurford and Philip Goulding, with new material written in accompaniment. The play was first performed in York in 1728 at Bank's Cockpit Without Bootham Bar and an adaptation by Brecht called The Threepenny Opera appeared at the theatre in 1975.

More than 200 volunteers will be involved in this new version, including cast members; wardrobe, lighting, sound and prop-making assistants; a small orchestra and the York Theatre Royal choir.

The piece will be split into five acts, each representing a style of theatre-making from the past 270 years, from 1744 to the present day. Act 1, The Original Beggar’s Opera from 1728, will be directed by Riding Lights' Paul Burbridge as it would first have appeared at Bank’s Cockpit Without Bootham Bar: noisy, unruly popular entertainment.

Act 2, The Beggar’s Opera Reversed In York, will be staged by Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster as a "reversed" production in which women played male characters and vice versa, as first staged in London in 1781 and presented at the Theatre Royal in 1782.

Pilot Theatre associate director Katie Posner will present Act 3, Melodrama & Music Hall Combination, which fuses the Victorian taste for the sentimental, lurid and extreme with wickedness and virtue, conveyed in the most demonstrative manner in 1899.

Julian Ollive, the Theatre Royal's education and young actors associate, will oversee 1975's Act 4, Agit-prop Theatre with Brechtian Delights, utilising Brecht's many methods of stripping away the reality of theatre, such as actors directly addressing the audience, bright lighting, explanatory placards and stage directions being spoken out loud.

Charlotte Bennett, from RashDash Theatre and the Forward Theatre Project, will be in charge of Act 5, 2016's The Beggar’s Opera Now, bringing the production up-to-date with a broad range of styles, a light touch and humour but with a serious bite too.

In addition, drop-in craft sessions will be held in the Theatre Royal foyer, where you can make a paper wig for use in the production tomorrow between 11.30am and 4pm and on Sunday between 11am and 3.30pm.

The Secret Bank Holiday Play will be designed by Anna Gooch and Lydia Denno, with lighting designed by Alexandra Stafford-Marshall, music composed by Dominic Sales, music directed by Madeleine Hudson and movement directed by Hayley Del Harrison.

Liam Evans-Ford, the Theatre Royal's associate producer, said: "After our major community productions, this is a brilliant opportunity to welcome our community theatre-makers back into our new building for a fun-packed chaotic weekend, which will lead to an exciting production looking at the past 270 years of theatre making at York Theatre Royal. This is all about enjoying the anarchy and enjoying making live theatre together in our newly redeveloped building."

Tickets for Monday's performance are on sale from the Theatre Royal box office in person, by phone on 01904 623568 or online at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk