The Chester Mystery Plays, the largest regularly produced community theatre event in the UK, will open at Chester Cathedral on June 28 with a run of 19 performances.
Directed by John Young (Romeo and Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor – Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, To Dream Again – Polka Theatre and Theatre Clwyd, staff director Kerry Jackson – National Theatre), with music by Matt Baker and design by Jess Curtis, a 400-strong company from Chester, the North West, and North Wales tells the greatest story ever told. Lighting design is by Aaron J Dootson with sound design by Kieran Lucas.
Tuesday, July 4, or Wednesday, July 5 2023 at 7.30 pm
Produced only once every five years, the Chester Mystery Plays tell Biblical tales of love, death, betrayal, and redemption, as told by the medieval freemen and guilds of the city. Presented in traverse with the stage running down the cathedral’s central aisle, the audience will never be more than four rows from the action.
John said: “The actors will journey through the space from the altar at one end to the West Door at the other as if they were traveling along Chester’s medieval streets. Moving from one place to another in this way brings fluidity, majesty, and ceremony to the way we tell these wonderful stories.”
The script for the 2023 cycle is an adaptation, by John Young, of Edward Burns’ Chester Mystery Plays, a new staging text (1987) and they will be presented in the nave of Chester Cathedral from June 28-July 15 at 7.30 pm (except Sundays) with a matinee every Saturday at 1 pm.
Tickets are available from www.chestermysteryplays.com, telephone 01244 500959, or from the Chester Cathedral Box Office.
