My Scarborough Day - featuring Stephen Joseph Theatre's young talent director Alice Kynman

At 6.30am I get up and take Wolf, my border collie, to the beach before rushing home and walking to work carrying some sort of instrument.

Music runs in my family and I play the piano, guitar and ukelele – plus lately I’ve been picking up a banjo.

9am I set up the rehearsal room to ensure everything I need is there – props, laptop and so on.

We are in the Studio Space, while Beauty and the Beast is in Rehearsal Room 1, which is the same size as the Round.

10am We’re rehearsing Thor’s Great Big Adventure, a new musical with a script by Rob Salmon, set and costumes by Julia Wray and songs by me.

Our cast of four are in third year at Coventry University’s Scarborough campus, studying drama.

We begin with a warm-up – physical and vocal – then get to grips with issues from the previous day.

I love writing silly songs, and before starting this job in January I was running the SJT’s Early Years Foundation Stage project, with Scarborough schoolchildren.

From the script I knew we wanted a song about adventure, one about loving home and another about not liking seagulls because they steal sandwiches and poo everywhere!

It’s aimed at under-sixes but I think parents will enjoy it as much as children.

11.30am We have a tea break, then do a full run of the show.

I make notes and operate the sound system.

Luke, who plays Thor, plays the banjalele for a couple of the songs and we use recorded music for another – for which I was allowed to use the theatre’s grand piano, a real privilege.

We have an immediate debrief and talk about what each actor needs to do individually, then we break for lunch.

I pop for a coffee at Eat Me – if there’s space.

2pm We work on areas that need attention and sometimes squeeze in another run-through.

The play is a lovely re-telling of what happened when Thor visited South Bay almost a year ago.

It’s pretty magical that there was a walrus on our shore and we wanted to make something about this town that people could get excited about.

There’s audience participation involving fish-throwing, because at the time the public were throwing fish at the real walrus and that wasn’t ideal.

The fish have been made by the theatre team over cups of tea in the Green Room.

4.30pm The cast go home but three or four evenings a week I work with Youth Theatre – we have 85 young people aged five to 25.

I also work with our new Young Company for aspiring actors, which is run by Rob Salmon.

In January, there are open auditions for their production of Dennis Kelly’s DNA, a story about teenagers trying to cover up something bad they have done.

When it comes to first nights of productions I’m involved in I’m more nervous than any of the young people I’ve put on stage.

I sit in the back row and can barely watch.

9pm If I’m home first I’ll cook and if my partner is, he will.

We lead busy work lives but spend Sundays together, dog-walking in Raincliffe Woods and getting Sunday dinner at Scalby Manor.

By 10.30pm I’m in bed – it’s a long old day!

Thor’s Great Big Adventure is at the SJT December 12 to 23.

Interview by Yolanda Carslaw.