Our weekly column devoted to the spectacular 2018 production of Chester Mystery Plays at the Cathedral is this week written by Jo Sykes who has been a member of the Mystery Plays company since 1962, when she joined as an actor, a trustee and member of the board since 1994 and chairman since 2003.
And another day in the life of the Chairman begins, with at least a dozen emails which have arrived overnight.
Don’t people ever sleep?
Prioritise GTD (Get Things Done) list which seems to grow longer by the minute.
Continue to pursue possible space for accommodating the costumes and cast during the production. Where will 4,000 programmes be delivered to within Abbey Square, as there is nowhere for them to be stored in the Cathedral?
How will the new car parking arrangements under the market affect the cast?
There is always a meeting to attend during the day, if not two or three.
If it’s a weekend, I attend at least one of the rehearsals, mainly to support the production team but actually because I am still, after all these years, fascinated by the process – and, of course, there’s invariably another meeting involved or the tea to make!
There might also be a presentation to prepare for, which could be anything from a Women’s Institute to a Dean’s Breakfast, Inner Wheel, Rotary, Sheriff’s Brunch, Hoteliers Association, Historical Society to name but a few.
I do have a small team of people now who are also willing to go out giving these talks which help to promote the productions, so not quite so much pressure as there used to be when it was just me. Once again, we have a wonderful artistic, production and management team and an enormously talented cast of actors and musicians.
The story is emerging well through the new script; Deborah McAndrew, our writer, certainly knows how to tell a tale!
Unfortunately, we have outgrown our beautiful new rehearsal space on the university Queen’s Park campus and have been forced to move for the final weeks of rehearsals.
We are so grateful to the Vice-Chancellor for his support, but with more than 300 adults and young people now in the cast and backstage, we have found the perfect venue in the lovely new hall of The Firs School, so we also thank them for their generous hospitality.
There are always concerns about the budget and I am constantly monitoring ticket sales as they, besides grants and sponsorship, are our only source of income.
The Reading of the Banns on Saturday, in the Town Hall square, signalled the real beginning of the Plays, so now we know that the production is imminent. Shepherds “came down from the Welsh hills”, joined by a number of Freemen from the Chester Guilds, to ask permission of the Lord Mayor to perform the plays.
Chester Mystery Plays 2018
Thankfully she gave her consent, otherwise all those weeks of rehearsals would have been wasted!
All is good, though, and the usual friendship patterns are forming and will continue to grow with the production and beyond.
I can guarantee that lifelong friendships will be made, as they were for me all those years ago.
