Welcome to the home of the Lincoln Mystery Plays and to our 2008 production. With casting now completed and rehearsals well underway, we are looking forward to an exciting year.
The Mystery Plays have a long history and can trace their origins back to the tenth century when monks and the clergy sought to bring to life short extracts from the scriptures for audiences comprising many who were both unable to read and to understand Latin – then, the principal language of the Church. By the fifteenth century, these Mystery Plays had become in some sense early community plays, owned by the townspeople rather than the clergy. The Mystery Plays were performed by town inhabitants themselves, often on carts paraded through the streets, with each cart having a play staged on it by a particular trade guild, a group of workers who sought to protect and promote the interests of their own particular craft. In order to become a fully-fledged member of the guild, a worker had to undertake a lengthy apprenticeship (often seven years) and upon successful completion of a complex piece of work (a masterpiece), the apprentice would then be accepted into the ‘mystery’ of the craft. Performers naturally made links between their own lives and the content of the plays, which gave the plays and their biblical message a vitality which was often lacking in the church services of the time.
Particular groups (or cycles) of plays are especially associated with specific British towns and cities – such as York, Coventry, Chester and Wakefield, as well as Lincoln. Similar dramatic productions were also staged in other European towns and cities. During the nineteenth century, following years of neglect, scholars began to take an interest in the play texts. In the later twentieth century, playwrights and theatre groups revived these wonderful plays. In Lincoln, Keith Ramsay translated the N-Town Cycle of plays, which was adopted as the City’s own, and plays from this cycle have been performed regularly since 1978.
Work has already begun on the 2008 production with a new website and with new key appointments, it promises to be a thrilling, uplifting and moving spectacle. We hope that you will join us either in the audience, as members of the cast or the supporting creative team.
Andrew Walker
Chair, Lincoln Mystery Plays Trust
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The Company is administered by the Lincoln Mystery Plays Trust Ltd, registered charity no. 1016184
