BREWSTER — Rehearsal starts with a circle. It’s Tuesday evening, and 20 teenagers from the Cape Rep Theatre’s Young Company face each other on the stage. Though they’re empty-handed, they play round after round of catch with an imaginary ball of energy. Catchers are choosen at random, and if you miss, you’re out.

The students are focused, working as a team. Those skills pay off later when most line up as a Greek chorus while director Maura Hanlon stages a scene from the company’s upcoming production of Zinnie Harris’s This Restless House: Agamemnon’s Return. It’s part one of a 2016 trilogy that reimagines Aeschylus’s Oresteia, addressing the Trojan War’s aftermath from women’s perspectives. The sections can be performed individually or all three continuously.

“Young people need something that’s meaty for them to do,” Hanlon says. “The world is just so troubled right now, and this is accessible to them.” The actors in the Greek chorus play disheveled, impoverished old men given a chance to have royalty — and the audience — listen to their truths about war. They deliver scraps of dialogue quickly, one after another. It soon becomes as rapid-fire as their game of catch.

Hanlon coaches line delivery and body language. It’s a lesson in acting, but — like much of what’s involved in the intensive work of the Young Company (YoCo) — her advice relates to life as well as theater.

“Have you ever felt invisible?” she asks the encircled group. One student responds, “Every day.” Hanlon pauses, then says, “It sucks being invisible. These people have felt invisible their whole lives. But this is their day to be important. Own it!”

This is the ninth winter for YoCo, Cape Rep’s free eight-week program open to grades 8 to 12, with all expenses paid by grants from local foundations or individual donations.

Hanlon, Cape Rep’s associate artistic director, gets help for group and one-on-one training from Alison Weller and other company artists on skills like voice and speech, stage combat, stage management, and costume design. The program began with 12 students but last year attracted 35. Twenty-nine are signed up this year. Many are returnees — Nauset Regional High School junior Izaak van der Wende is back for his fourth year, and gap-year NRHS graduates Myles Nelson and Saturn Dubois for their fifth and sixth respectively.

All three consider YoCo a highlight of their year. No matter how you feel coming in, says Nelson, the program is a safe, freeing space. While school and community theater are important parts of van der Wende’s life, he says he learns more in these eight weeks than from any other classes or shows.

Hanlon relies on returnees to help newbies by “showing them bravery and how to make big, loud, ridiculous choices.” In another game, two students randomly called by number must rush into the middle of the circle and improvise a scene from Hanlon’s prompts, like “fireworks in a trashcan” or “two giraffes in a kayak.” The returnees, Hanlon says, “have already gotten over self-consciousness. They trust the process, and they’ll just go for it. That’s everything when you’re making theater.”

Participants in YoCo must commit three weeknight evenings for two months and a full tech week before their performances, this winter on Feb. 7 and 8. This is Nauset senior Fiona McCray’s first year, and though involvement has meant juggling school and rehearsals for Nauset High’s production of Little Women, she finds YoCo worth it.

“I’m learning a lot, I’m really enjoying it, and I feel like I’m growing,” says McCray. “At YoCo, it feels like everyone is on the exact same footing, and we’re one collective group instead of little cliques, which I really like.”

Hanlon chooses plays based on their roles, challenging language — like Shakespeare’s poetry — physical action, and learning opportunities. Most students won’t make theater a career, she says, but she believes YoCo teaches a love of the arts and some important life skills. Dubois mentions teamwork and memorization. “Every single thing I learn in YoCo applies to everyday life, too,” says van der Wende.

“They’ll be able to stand up in front of someone and say something,” Hanlon says. Theater improves “their confidence in themselves, their ability to collaborate, their ability to open their imaginations to other possibilities, their willingness to say yes to things that may come up in their lives.”

Associate director Ian Hamilton was a YoCo student and has returned annually. He’s now the Nauset High School drama teacher. He says trust is one of YoCo’s key lessons. “It’s important they find a group of people they feel comfortable around, interpersonally and when it comes to creating art,” he says. “If they don’t trust each other, we’re dead onstage.”

With YoCo students representing nearly every Cape high school, initial meetings focus on making the disparate group a unit. That includes having them all watch and learn from each other’s scenes — and even their auditions. Later, they lobby for a desired role based on how it will help them improve and grow.

Despite their different backgrounds, the group always seems to find their rhythm as they learn to be “bravely creative together,” Hanlon says. As for the production: “Every year, somehow,

knock on wood, we miraculously get it done.”

All the World’s a Stage

The event: The Young Company’s This Restless House: Agamemnon’s Return by Zinnie Harris
The time: Friday, Feb. 7, 7 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 8, 2 and 7 p.m.
The place: Cape Rep Theatre, 3299 Route 6A, Brewster
The cost: $10, $5 for students under 18, at 508-896-1888 or caperep.org