The team behind the five-yearly Chester Mystery Plays cycle will soon start to pull together the more than 400-strong company of community players and backstage staff for the Chester Cathedral spectacle from June 28-July 15.
The show is reckoned to be the country's largest regularly-repeated community theatre production, and this year is likely to be seen by upwards of 8,000 people. Over a quarter of the available tickets have already been sold.
The mediaeval retelling of the Bible stories from Creation to Last Judgement was revived in the early Fifties for the Festival of Britain, and made formal in the 1980s with the creation of a company to produce the plays in quinquennial cycles and to retain the tradition and history of the works in the context of their original setting.
This year's director will be John Young, most recently a staff director at the National Theatre, who will be joined by designer Jess Curtis (Vincent River in Brussels, Jekyll and Hyde in Derby); composer and musical director Matt Baker – this will be his fifth Chester stint; movement director Emma Briggs, who has had a 30-year career at a teacher of contemporary dance); lighting designer Aaron J Dootson (several shows at Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre, The Lowry and others), and sound designer Kieran Lucas.
More info and tickets here