After their suppression in Tudor times, the plays remained little known until
Lucy Toulmin Smith obtained permission from the
Earl of Ashburnham to study the manuscript of the plays in his possession and publish her transcription together with an introduction and short glossary in 1885. In 1909, the York Historic Pageant included a parade of guild banners accompanying a wagon representing the Nativity through the streets. In December the same year a selection of six plays was performed as a fund-raising venture for
St Olave's Church, York. The play cycle was revived on a much larger scale in 1951 in the York Festival of the Arts, part of the
Festival of Britain celebrations. It was performed on a fixed stage in the ruins of
St Mary's Abbey in the
Museum Gardens and directed by
E. Martin Browne. The music, written for the occasion by
James Brown, was directed by
Allan Wicks. The part of Jesus was played by
Joseph O'Conor, (although he was not named in the programme for fear of backlash) and other roles were taken by amateurs. As the York Mystery Plays website notes: A prohibition on the representation of the deity - God or Christ - still existed in England, so the name of the professional actor hired to play Jesus for the 1951 production was kept a secret. And the Dean of York still maintained a ban on the representation of the giving of the Sacrament of the Last Supper. In the interests of comprehensibility, the text was abbreviated and modernised by
Canon Purvis who went on to lead the
Borthwick Institute at the University of York, and produced a modernisation of the complete text. Following the success of the 1951 production, said to be "the most widely applauded festival event in the country, with over 26,000 people witnessing the Plays", Usually directed by a professional and with a professional actor playing Jesus, the rest of the cast were local amateurs.
Ian McShane played Lucifer/Satan in 1963. Some amateur actors such as
Judi Dench became professionals. Directors included
E. Martin Browne again (1954, 1957, 1966),
David Giles (1960),
William Gaskill (1963), Edward Taylor (1969, 1973),
Jane Howell (1976),
Patrick Garland (1980),
Toby Robertson (1984) and
Steven Pimlott (1988). The role of Jesus was played a second time by
Joseph O'Conor (1954), then by
Brian Spink (1957),
Tom Criddle, (1960),
Alan Dobie (1963),
John Westbrook (1966),
John Stuart Anderson (1973), local York man
David Bradley (1976),
Christopher Timothy (1980),
Simon Ward (1984) and
Victor Banerjee (1988). In 1992, the York production was moved in a modern production to the
York Theatre Royal, with
Robson Green playing Christ and a script adapted by
Liz Lochhead. The 1996 production in the same place was all-amateur, with the part of Jesus played by local solicitor Rory Mulvihill, and the script shortened by Lochhead. For 2000, the interest of the
Dean of York, Very Rev
Raymond Furnell, led him to offer the use of
York Minster for the most ambitious production so far.
York Millennium Mystery Plays In 2000 a large-scale performance was staged in York Minster, as
The York Millennium Mystery Plays, directed by
Gregory Doran, with a script adapted by
Mike Poulton. With
Ray Stevenson in the role of Christ and Rory Mulvihill (Jesus in 1996) as Satan, the production was the most expensive and wide-reaching project in the history of the plays' modern revival. The production ran for a month, with a total audience of 28,000. Aside from the professional director and actor, Ray Stevenson, the cast was made up of amateurs, mainly from the York area. More than fifty children also took part. Original music was written for the production by local composer
Richard Shephard. The show involved more than 1,000 local volunteers working alongside theatre professionals in all areas of the production, including 500 amateur actors organised into two casts who shared the 30-performance run. The combined role of Jesus and God the Father was played by
Ferdinand Kingsley, and Lucifer/Satan by
Graeme Hawley. Reviews for the production were generally positive, with praise for the spectacle and stage design as well as the efforts of the volunteers.
2016 production In 2016 the plays were performed in York Minster from 26 May,
the feast of Corpus Christi, until 30 June. The director, Phillip Breen, had previously directed for the
Royal Shakespeare Company. The production featured a large step set by designers Max Jones and Ruth Hall, that was dissected by a thin gauze that reached to the vaulted ceiling, which was utilised as a projection screen by projection designer Douglas O'Connell. Writer
Mike Poulton and composer
Richard Shephard repeated their millennium production roles. The cast had about 150 amateur actors and the sole professional,
Philip McGinley, played Jesus except for the last four performances, when, owing to his sudden illness, the role was taken by his understudy Toby Gordon who had, up to then, played Satan. This caused a cascade of understudying which was superbly handled by a committed cast. It also elevated Toby Gordon into the ‘Crew of Two’ with Rory Mulvihill as the only actors in the history of the plays to have played both Jesus and Satan.
2019 In December 2019, the York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust (YMPST) created
A Nativity for York directed by Philip Parr, the first of what was planned to be an annual Christmas production in the city. He created a script using the original texts from a selection of the eight plays in the Nativity cycle:
The Annunciation and the Visitation,
Joseph’s Trouble about Mary,
The Nativity,
The Shepherds,
Herod and The Magi,
The Flight into Egypt,
The Slaughter of the Innocents, and
The Purification of the Virgin. These were condensed into a one-hour play. Amateur actors and musicians gave seven performances from 12 to 15 December 2019 at the Spurriergate Centre, Spurriergate, York.
2021 In July 2021, York Minster, the York Festival Trust and the York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust jointly produced
A Resurrection for York to celebrate the easing of restrictions and a hope for a brighter future. This was an outdoor production in the Residents Gardens adjoining Dean's Park in York and followed the experiences of people following the crucifixion.
Waggon plays An experimental production using horse-drawn brewers’
drays and market stalls, was performed around
Leeds University, in 1975. In 1994 the Leeds-based historian Jane Oakshott worked alongside the Friends of York Mystery Plays, the Centre for Medieval Studies at the
University of York and the
York Early Music Festival to direct the first processional performance of the plays in modern times in York. The production involved nine amateur drama groups each taking one play, and touring it to five playing stations in central York using pageant waggons. A production in similar format in 1998 featured eleven plays, and for the first time the modern York Guilds were involved with some of the plays, either directly or as sponsors. The same year (1998) a full production of all of the plays on waggons took place at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Following the production in York Minster in 2000, the Waggon Plays were the only regular cycle performed in the city until 2012 when the static plays were revived. The Waggon Plays also used the Museum Gardens as a performance station maintaining the link between St Mary's Abbey and the plays established in the 1950s. For the 2002 production management transferred to a committee of the Guilds of York: the York Guild of Building, the Company of Merchant Taylors, the Company of Cordwainers, the Gild of Freemen, the Company of Butchers, the Guild of Scriveners and the Company of Merchant Adventurers. Ten plays were produced with the assistance of local drama groups. In 2006, twelve waggons performed in the streets, in conjunction with the
York Early Music Festival. The 2010 production featured twelve waggons, performing at four stations. At the same time the only known surviving manuscript of the plays was displayed in
York Art Gallery. Two plays (Creation and Noah's Ark) were performed on waggons at two stations in the York 800 celebrations in 2012. The performances on waggons were given again by the Guilds in 2014, continuing the established four-yearly cycle. 2018 saw the plays return to the streets of York once more, this time with a selection of 11 plays. Most recently the plays were performed on wagons in 2022 with eight plays performed over two Sundays with a smaller set of the plays performed in the Shambles market. They are due to return on Sunday 28 June and Sunday 5 July 2026.
Language in modern productions Modern performances use some degree of modernisation of the text, either by a radical policy of replacing all obsolete word and phrases by modern equivalents, or at least by using modern pronunciations. An exception is the productions of the
Lords of Misrule, a dramatic group composed of students and recent graduates of the Department of Medieval Studies at the
University of York. Their presentations use authentic
Middle English both in the words used and in their pronunciation. They have regularly contributed to one of the waggon play productions. == Editions ==