Charles Hutchinson catches up with York's busiest young people's theatre group.

STAGECOACH Youth Theatre York is to mount the most ambitious programme of its nine-year history. Director John Cooper plans to rehearse and mount nine productions in the new academic year with a view to decreasing the membership waiting list.

"We aim to cater for as many young people as we can accommodate in our new-found home at Trinity Hall in Monkgate," he says.

The 2001-2002 programme kicks off with Arthur Miller's The Crucible, from September 20 to 22 at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York. For a number of months, 20 youngsters from schools and colleges across the city have been studying the play about the Salem witchcraft trials and Miller's parallels with the Communist purges in America in the 1950s.

For this production, Cooper is joined by associate director Daniel Weyman. "Together we've decided to stage the piece as simply as possible, relying on the power of Miller's writing to negate the need for ornate sets," Cooper says.

From October 25 to 27 at the Rowntree Theatre, the company presents Home And Away in a joint production with PACT Yorkshire, a project of the Children's Society. This musical documentary is based on the real-life experiences of evacuated children in the Second World War and incorporates music of the era, plus photographs and film footage as a backdrop.

"After several workshop projects between PACT and Stagecoach, this will be our first major production together," says Cooper. "I'll be assisted by directors Annie Ormond and Jenny Stanley, as well as receiving back-up from PACT volunteers for a production that will boast a company of 40."

The Stagecoach/PACT partnership has attracted sponsorship from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Halifax and the Lilian and Kenneth Harrison Trust.

Christmas will be celebrated by Stagecoach with a revival of Humbug!, John Cooper's adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The Joseph Rowntree Theatre will be the venue for a family show featuring a 30-strong cast aged eight to 18.

Next February, St Valentine's Day heralds the appearance of the world's best-loved beagle when Snoopy! takes to the boards with a company comprising many of the junior Stagecoach cast from this year's Honk!. Based, devotedly, on four decades of Peanuts cartoons by Schulz, this musical brings to stage life such immortal characters as Charlie Brown, Linus, Sally Brown, Lucy, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty and the all-singing, all-dancing irascible canine himself.

Next May, a "very senior" Stagecoach cast presents Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders; next June, John Cooper plans to mount a studio production at the company's home base for the time since buying the Monkgate premises. Moliere's French farce La Malade Imaginaire has been adapted for younger actors for this show.

Pending negotiations, Stagecoach hopes to present A Midsummer Night's Dream next July in the Museum Gardens, using a "resourceful cast of young people of all ages". Cooper says: "This was the first Shakespeare play Stagecoach ever tackled six years ago when the costumes and performances met with the reaction of 'seriously sexy' - and we think we've moved on from there!"

In the second of the Monkgate studio productions, scheduled for October 2002, Cooper intends to produce a double bill of Strindberg's erotic shocker Miss Julie and a number of Chekhov short plays.

To wind up next year, Stagecoach will be re-creating Frances Hodgson Burnett's story of the education and chequered history of Sara Crewe at Miss Minchin's Academy for the Enlightenment of Young Girls. A Little Princess is booked into the Joseph Rowntree Theatre for a show with a cast of 40.

Places are still available for productions rehearsing from next January. For more details and membership forms, write to John Cooper, Stagecoach Youth Theatre York, 41 Monkgate, York, YO31 7PB, or ring him on 01904 674675.