feel me, gradely, everyone
& see that I have flesh & bone

york plays 2025
saturday, june 7
start time 6:00 am

50 short plays
each one repeating
at 3 different stations
we go until we’re done
(likely past midnight)

From reading local archives, most drama historians have thus far assumed that each play in the York cycle running order would run on its own at each station, then move its pageant wagon immediately to the next station and run again — while the subsequent play runs, on its wagon stage, at the station just vacated. So at each of the twelve medieval stations, simultaneously, there would be a different single play running, each on its own wagon; when that set of plays were done, every play would move forward one station and run again, until each of the twelve stations had hosted all fifty plays.

The problem with that assumption is that the various surviving plays are often wildly different in length, forcing shorter plays to wait, over and over, while the play ahead of them took up to three times as long to complete. In 2019, Arlynda Boyer offered one possible solution to that problem. For our 2025 production, we’ll test another hypothesis: that some of the shorter plays might travel to a performance station together, run one after the other, and then move to the next station together.

Indeed, based on the economic realities or human resources in any given year, the medieval producers seem sometimes to have spliced together Corpus Christi plays that had been treated as separate in previous years — or separated what was once a single play into two. And we certainly have our own economic realities in the 2020s — so, to make this production feasible in terms of funding and personnel, we’re making some re-arrangements of our own (while still, of course, performing the entirety of the surviving text). We’ve arranged the fifty York plays into 35 clusters, which we’ve assigned in pairs to 17 production teams (so each team will appear twice during the full-day performance), until we all come together for the final cluster at the end.

Our production teams, drawn from universities, colleges, faith-based groups, theatre troupes, and re-enactment fans, will involve hundreds of participants from across North America, of various backgrounds and faiths (or of no faith at all).

Some of our physical staging plan is still in development: we’ll definitely repeat each play across multiple stations on the Burwash Quad, but as of yet we’re still developing ways to move our plays (our teams will likely simply walk from station to station, but we may have the opportunity to try new ways to move — check back here for more news as we learn more!).

CLUSTER 1: Creation of the Cosmos
(Pageant I: Creation of the Angels & Fall of Lucifer / Pageant II: Creation): Fordham Medieval Dramatists, led from New York by pageant master Prof. Andrew Albin

CLUSTER 2: Adam & Eve
(Pageant III: Creation of Adam & Eve / Pageant IV: Prohibition of the Tree of Knowledge / Pageant V: Fall of Adam & Eve): CUNY-Brooklyn College & Claremont McKenna College, led from New York & California by pageant masters Prof. Lauren Mancia and Prof. Ellen Ketels

CLUSTER 3: Out of Eden
(Pageant VI: Expulsion from the Garden / Pageant VII: Cain & Abel): St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, led from Illinois by pageant masters Phoenix Gonzalez & Fr. Tim O’Leary

CLUSTER 4: Noah
(Pageant VIII: Building of the Ark / Pageant IX: The Flood): University of Tennessee-Knoxville, led from Tennessee by pageant masters Prof. Katie Lupica & Prof. Gina Marie di Salvo

CLUSTER 5: Abraham & Isaac
(Pageant X only): University of Calgary, led from Alberta by pageant master Prof. Jacqueline Jenkins

CLUSTER 6: Moses & Pharaoh
(Pageant XI only): Radford University, led from Virginia by pageant master Prof. Frank Napolitano

CLUSTER 7: Annunciation & Visitation
(Pageant XII only): Loyola Marymount University, led from California by pageant master Prof. John Sebastian

CLUSTER 8: Joseph’s Troubles
(Pageant XIII only): Unruly Players, led from Ohio by pageant masters Liam Daley, Kelly Elliott, & Charlene Smith

CLUSTER 9: Nativity
(Pageant XIV: The Nativity / Pageant XV: The Shepherds): Centennial College, led here in Ontario by pageant master Ara Glenn-Johanson

CLUSTER 10: Magi
(Pageant XVI only): The Honourable Company of Creatively Anachronistic Players, led here in Ontario by pageant master Sarah Scroggie

CLUSTER 11: Mary’s Purification
(Pageant XVII only): University of Calgary, led from Alberta by pageant master Prof. Jacqueline Jenkins

CLUSTER 12: Flight & Slaughter
(Pageant XVIII: Flight into Egypt / Pageant XIX: The Slaughter of the Innocents): Shenandoah University, led from Virginia by pageant master Prof. Carolyn Coulson

CLUSTER 13: Youth & Baptism
(Pageant XX: Christ and the Doctors / Pageant XXI: Baptism of Christ): University of Waterloo & Brock University, led here in Ontario by pageant masters Karen Ward & Prof. Jennifer Roberts-Smith

CLUSTER 14: At Cana and Simon’s House
(Lost Pageant: Marriage in Cana / Lost Pageant: Feast at Simon’s House): University of Tennessee-Knoxville, led from Tennessee by pageant masters Prof. Katie Lupica & Prof. Gina Marie di Salvo

CLUSTER 15: Temptation and Transfiguration
(Pageant XXII: The Temptation in the Wilderness / Pageant XXIII: The Transfiguration): CUNY-Brooklyn College and Claremont McKenna College, led from New York and California by pageant masters Prof. Lauren Mancia and Prof. Ellen Ketels

CLUSTER 16: Casting Stones & Raising Lazarus
(Pageant XXIV only): The Approximators, led here in Ontario by pageant masters Jane Smythe & Michaella Mairi Kinloch

CLUSTER 17: To Jerusalem
(Pageant XXV only): University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign, led from Illinois by pageant masters Prof. Carol Symes & Prof. Robert Barrett