Canberra Youth Theatre's latest production is an immersive work of theatre responding to the poetry of Canberra writer and actor Joshua Bell.

Bell, who's worked with CYT in other works as a performer and deviser over the past few years, says he has periodically set himself the task of writing a poem every day for a month which he then self-published in three volumes of 'zines.

"CYT was aware of my work and it resonated with them," he says.

"They approached me to create a work in response to my poetry."

co-director Katie Cawthorne says."One of the themes that evolved we were attracted to was weirdness."

Accordingly, there will be a particular focus on the poem beginning "Don't hide your weirdness".

Cawthorne, fellow director Tracy Bourne and the young cast of nine, aged between 16 and 25, used it and a selection of Bell's other poems as inspiration for creating a movement and voice-based theatre piece. They began working on it in March.

"We play with tempo and voice ...the audience will find connections between everything," Cawthorne says. As well as movement there will be some vocal improvising in the piece. she says, and "a silly song".

She says Poem Every Day will be highly theatricalised, drawing on the gestural practices of Pina Bausch, the choreographic work Omar Naharin and the immersive and alienating theatrical devices of Bertolt Brecht, all in response to Bell's work.

"There will be an array of broad emotional experiences - funny stuff, surprises, darkness, strength, anger. We've tried to play with emotional responses to the process, not just analytical responses."

Bell says he kept away from the early development of the production after handing over his work but has returned for the latter stages to see what CYT made of it.

"It's beautiful - so humbling to see young people being really brave in such courageous work, responding to someting so distinctly and so positively in their own way," he says.

One of those young people is Stefanie Lekkas, who at 26 says she's taking her last opportunity to do a "youth" show with CYT having previously done shows with Victorian Youth Theatre in Melbourne.

"This is my third CYT production - I did Skin in 2015 and Antigone last year."

She says for Poem Every Day that in addition to working as a group contributing ideas each of the participants chose a poem on which to focus. She selected one beginning "I am constructed from stories", liking the idea that people were made up in large part of the tales, ideas and other things that influenced them and created a solo number inspired by it.

"I look at what happens when the stories aren't all happy. ... You write new ones new stories that take you to a different place."