RULES, RESOURCES, LOGISTICS
FOR YORK 2025 PARTICIPANTS
From here out, the General Manager (Matt, matthew.sergi@utoronto.ca), Production Stage Manager (Dawn, dawnnearing@gmail.com), and Project Managers (Aria and Savannah) will be hosting open, optional online meetings for all participants and organizers. Feel free to attend any and all! These meetings will occur in this virtual Zoom room on March 5, April 2, April 30, May 14, May 28, and June 4, all Wednesdays from 10:15am to 11:30am Eastern time.
As of Feb 21, most of the information on this page is review of what we’d already shared before, but I’ve reorganized and condensed it for easier reference, and added some very important new information — please read all just to make sure you’re not missing anything. Any changes I make after Feb 21 will be in blue bold print so you can find them easily; any changes I make after Mar 27 will be in gold bold print for the same reason; any changes from Apr 30 on will be in bold red print.
All participants in York 2025, individually, must fill out our online registration form (click here) and must fill out, sign, and have a witness sign our legal waiver (linked through the form). Please do this by May 16 at latest. I recommend that team leaders print out multiple copies of the waiver so everyone can just fill out and sign at rehearsal — from there you can scan the signed waivers and email them in as instructed.
NEW PHOTOS OF THE WAGONS UNDER CONSTRUCTION are visible here (I’ll keep adding to this folder as I receive further pics).
We also now have a WhatsApp group for practical and production concerns — click here to join. If you have items you’re looking to borrow, post there and also email Matt.
Also, if you’re interesting in listening to that rather silly Spotify playlist that Matt compiled in honor of Y25, you can listen to it here. There are 35 tracks, with the requirement that they have been initially produced in 2005 or later (one exception) — each corresponds to one cluster, in order. They have nothing else to do with our plays but it’s kind of a fun listen.
1. EACH GROUP has been assigned TWO PLAY-CLUSTERS, IN FITZGERALD’S UPDATED-SPELLING EDITIONS.
The original York Plays manuscript separates its material into fifty distinct pageants, but every Y25 participating group has been assigned two clusters: groupings of the original pageant material, sometimes splicing two or three pageants into one, which you should treat as one continuous play. (If you wish, you can mark the original breakages between pageants visually, or with signs or short music cues, but the breakage must pass as quickly as any other scene shift: do not introduce major transitions or pauses!). You can find your assigned Fitzgerald texts either in the Broadview edition (use discount code YORK20) or in Fitzgerald’s free donated York 2025 texts. Each group will perform each of its assigned clusters three times in a row, each time at a different station outdoors, on wagon stages (see below). See below for a full running schedule.
2. Before moving forward with your text, you MUST read through all of, and follow with care, the public web resource with rules for how we handle our TEXTS (CLICK HERE), especially the expandable rules at the bottom.
If you wish, you can follow those instructions to translate (but not adapt) any part of your clusters into present-day language that is meaningful to you. You can also just perform the Fitzgerald text as is: it’s your choice. (You can also check out examples of how fellow contributors have translated their texts or offer your own work-in-progress for feedback from the group.)
3. ALL PARTICIPANTS IN y25 — PERFORMERS, DIRECTORS, AND ANY OTHER TEAM MEMBERS AND VOLUNTEERS — MUST REGISTER FOR THE EVENT AND SIGN A WAIVER OF LIABILITY.
No one can touch any of our wagon stages or involve themselves in Y25 productions without registering and signing the waiver (click here). There is, of course, no fee for participants in Y25 to register! — we just need to have a full confirmed list of every participant. Registration will also grant participants access to our off-day indoor conference-style activities (probably on Sun 8 June), though no one is required to attend those.
4. FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, REHEARSE AND DEVELOP WITH TIMERS, MAKING ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR ASSIGNED CLUSTER WILL RUN WITHIN YOUR ALLOTTED TIME. IN REHEARSAL, YOUR RUNS SHOULD ALL BE COMING IN about 1 MINUTE UNDER YOUR ALLOTTED TIME.
Clusters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 35 are allotted 20 minutes.
Cluster 8 is allotted 18 minutes.
Clusters 31, 33, and 34 are allotted 25 minutes.
All other clusters are allotted 24 minutes.
In addition to those allotments, the five proportionally lengthiest Clusters — 4, 12, 17, 21, and 24 — should plan to send a few of their actors to each station ahead of when their wagon arrives, to get the play started during the transition, immediately after the prior play ends. In so doing, they can add up to 4 extra minutes to the start of their clusters, as long as that four minutes occurs in the platea (see below) before the stage rolls into each station.
Don’t ask to be allotted more time — we haven’t got any. Every cluster has been allotted time proportional to the number of lines in their texts and to the time we have in the day. Pacing should always be lively in outdoor drama; a comfortable delivery of a four-beat York line runs at 19 lines per minute (compare to the usual standard of 16.66 per minute for pentameter). Click here for a woefully underrehearsed example of what 19 lines per minute sounds like (sorry for the weird squeaky line at the end). 24 minutes, then, is more than enough time to accommodate clusters 456 lines and under — that is, enough for all clusters (11 and 13 might be slightly tighter).
Start working now to develop ways to keep your production alive, flexible, playful, and unrushed, while still coming in consistently under time (obviously, keep your pace lively, kill darlings, remove any unnecessary stage business, transitions, or silences). Stage business, scene shifts, etc should always be happening while lines are being delivered (that’s how medieval embedded cues usually are built to work): there shouldn’t be pauses of any significant length in outdoor plays like these. Do not cut lines from the original text to meet your time — cut everything else first (or else a major purpose of this exercise is defeated!). Our team of 7 ASMs, led by our Production Stage Manager Dawn Nearing, will give you a 30-seconds-left warning by ringing bells; they will be trained to “ring out,” and then rather cruelly “chant out,” anyone who goes more than 30 seconds overtime — if that happens, it will look bad on your team and on Y25 in general. Unlike usual theatre rehearsals, you should be timing out full runs (however shaky) well in advance of the show, and by May 23 at latest. If you find in rehearsal that you are unable to fit your assigned material into your allotted time, contact Matt right away (yorkplays @ plspls.ca).
5. IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT THAT A CLUSTER IN ITS CURRENT STATE WILL RUN MORE THAN 2 MINUTES UNDER YOUR ALLOTTED TIME, ADD NEW MATERIAL TO FILL OUT THE TIME. IF FITZGERALD HAS NOTED MISSING LINES OR PAGES IN YOUR TEXT, ADD NEW DIALOGUE EXACTLY WHERE THE OLD MATERIAL WAS LOST.
Check the public web resource with rules for how we handle our texts for guidelines on how to generate new material. If you are confident that your cluster will run under your allotted time and you don’t have any Fitzgerald notes saying there are missing lines or pages, try music and singing, especially if your text has cues for music (or random Latin Bible quotes, which can easily be set to music and quite likely were in the early productions). Cut back any additions that prove, in rehearsal, to run too long.
6. ENCOURAGE REAL FUN, FLEXIBILITY, AND CAMP IN YOUR PERFORMERS. AVOID REALISM; REJECT POLISHED REPEATABILITY. Don’t try to convince us you’re someone else OR TRANSPORT US ELSEWHERE: be yourself, HERE, playing a role WITH REAL EMOTION.
YOUR SHOW SHOULD BE LOUD, PHYSICAL, AND UNPRECIOUS ENOUGH THAT OUTDOOR UNPREDICTABLES WILL FEED INTO IT, NOT TRIP IT UP.
Medieval plays were more like sports than art. If you haven’t already, please read through the Y25 guide for how we play medieval plays, and ask your full team (including performers) to do the same. These guidelines aren’t meant as restrictive rules as much as disruptors, challenges to the modern theatrical habits that have often made medieval play productions fall flat in the past. They are there to spark discussion, so please discuss them! Don’t stress about the guidelines, but please consider them deeply and keep them in mind as you develop your contributions to Y25. If you decide to reject any of the guidelines, at least take the time to ask yourself why — and feel free to chat out your thoughts with Matt. Above all, BE LOUD AND BIG — practice outdoors and make sure all your voices can be heard.
Your performers should never engage in physical action that requires exact timing, spacing, or repeatability to be safe: choose less realistic physical action instead (and consult, if you wish, last year’s long conversation about safety at the old shared Google Doc, which isn’t being updated anymore).
7. on-site lodging is finally ready.
There is now (finally) affordable dorm lodging available at Vic College, right at the performance site. You’re not required to lodge there, but it will be much easier and more fun if you do, and we have now secured a block of rooms specifically for our event. To make reservations, consult Vic’s accommodation page (remember to adjust for the CAD/USD exchange rate) but rather than filling out the online form, email Arun at arun.dandona@utoronto.ca with your request, making clear that you are “an academic contributor to the CRRS York Plays event on June 7” (use that wording!) and CC your email to matthew.sergi@utoronto.ca. If the lodging folks offer any barriers to your reservations other than asking you to render payment in a normal way, contact Matt immediately.
8. AIM TO ARRIVE IN TORONTO THU 5 JUNE, THEN SITUATE & WALK THE SPACE FRI 6 JUNE (NO REHEARSALS WITH WAGONS). YOUR FULL TEAM IS REQUIRED TO ATTEND THE FULL DAY OF PERFORMANCES, STARTING AT 6AM ON SAT 7 JUNE AND EXTENDING PAST MIDNIGHT. YOUR FULL TEAM IS ALSO REQUIRED TO BE AVAILABLE ON OUR RAIN DATE, FROM 6AM SUN 8 JUNE THROUGH 1:30AM MON 9 JUNE.
If you are travelling across international borders, and especially if you’re carrying any big or strange theatrical items with you, be sure to check well ahead of time to anticipate any problems or delays at customs. Every group is responsible for its own lodging and travel planning, including customs concerns and travel insurance. We cannot provide any parking, so if you are driving in, you should find and reserve a spot in advance. Do not schedule your departure from Toronto earlier than 1:30am Mon 9 June. If it is significantly easier for you to arrive in Toronto Fri 6 June rather than Thu 5 June, that’s fine, but please let Matt know to expect it (we’ll try to arrange some light socializing on Thurs and Fri, though!).
All groups are called for the whole show day, so we can be each other’s audiences (see the how we play guide for ideas about how to do that!). All groups are responsible for making their own decisions about when to take breaks, get food, and ensure everyone is where they need to be — make sure everyone brings a refillable water bottle (water fountains and washrooms are inside the big main building in the middle of Burwash Quad, whose accessible entrance at its southeast corner takes up to five extra minutes to traverse). There will be no food for sale at the event, but you can bring food in — see the What to Know page for nearby grab-and-go suggestions.
There are no supplies, support, or spaces we can arrange for you that aren’t already listed here — we, like you, are working on a tight budget, using volunteers. We have only reserved our performance space, Burwash Quad, for the Saturday and Sunday. The space is always open to the public, so if you wish to come by and walk the space on the Thurs or Fri, and even to mark through elements of your performance, including physical action (in a way that won’t disrupt the other folks using the space that day), do so. The wagon stages (see below) will not be available in the space until the show begins: your first step onto the wagon will be at your first public run. There is nothing we can do about this. Rehearse with unpredictability in mind; any potentially dangerous physical action should happen at ground level.
If it rains badly enough on Sat 7 June, we will move any remaining plays to Sun 8 June. Our PSM Dawn has now put together a rain plan setting out what weather conditions count as “badly enough” — click here if you’d like to consult it. If it rains badly enough on BOTH days — and it might — then we will have to move any remaining plays indoors, into a relatively small room with no wagon stage, which will only be open to registered participants; for any other attendees, the event will be cancelled (note that the public website does not mention the indoor rain plan, because in that plan the show is no longer open to the public). There is nothing we can do about this either! Again, rehearse with unpredictability in mind.
We will host optional indoor off-day conference-style activities on Sun 8 June (or on Sat 7 June if it rains), open to registered Y25 participants only.
9. THERE ARE THREE PERFORMANCE STATIONS. Every cluster will be assigned to a wagon stage, which AT LEAST THREE OF your team members must help pull from station to station, ABOUT A 2-3 MINUTE WALK.
Consult the running schedule for rough timing, and to see which wagon (they differ!) you’re assigned to.
For the most recent draft of our full running schedule, click here [updated 3 April] — we allow 6.5 minutes per transition in our schedule, but transitions should never take longer than 4 minutes. Always keep the transitions as efficient as possible: we need to gain as many minutes with quick transitions as we can, because we will inevitably bleed minutes later on for human error. Dawn and her team will be overseeing the full run and especially the transitions: follow their instructions attentively.
Our attempt to relocate one station was rejected [as of 10 April], so we are back to the original plan for station locations — click here. To see an on-the-ground video of Matt lugging something heavy from station to station, click here. [updated/edited 10 April, FIXED 26 May]. After your final showing, your team wagon-pullers will have to pull your wagon through the eastern gatehouse, then back up around campus to return it to the pre-show set-up station, where the next team will take over.
Participants cannot remain on the wagon while it is moving.
Wagon A, modelled on the York Mercers’ 1433 indenture, will have a permanently installed second level, with a pulley system for ascensions and descents. If you are assigned Wagon A, plan to have and work with a built-in upstage wall (and use, if you wish, a sturdy upper level, accessible by ladder, at the upstage side of your wagon — see sketches below) [added 3 April]. If you are assigned Wagon A and want to make use of the second level or pulley, contact Matt. The Clusters assigned to Wagon A are 2 (Adam & Eve), 6 (Moses & Pharaoh), 10 (Magi), 14 (At Cana & Simon’s House), 18 (Conspiracy & Last Supper), 22 (Herod Antipas), 27 (Death on the Cross), 31 (Thomas & Ascension), 34 (Mary in Heaven), 35 (Judgment).
Every other Cluster is on Wagons B, C, and D, which will be simpler — basically raised platforms on wheels — with optional upstage flats (6 feet high and 6 feet wide, made of plywood-cladded metal) that you can slide in at one end, if you wish (you could, for instance, attach a fabric drop to the flat). You can use 1/2-inch nails, tacks, or screws to attach materials to the plywood cladding anywhere on the wagon, which is nearly all of the upstage flat and floor — as long as you will be able to remove them again quickly when you’re done.
10. WAGON DIMENSIONS — the SHORT (6’) END IS DOWNSTAGE
All wagons will provide you a platform that is 6 feet wide and 10 feet deep — yes, the shorter ends are downstage and upstage (where the upstage flat will be). The platform will be 3 feet 7 inches off the ground, rolling up at each station to a free-standing set of stairs (click here for design) (which will not attach flush to the platform and so can be moved to wherever your team prefers — performers will have to step up from the step onto the platform). That said, Station 3 seriously limits the possible places those stairs could go: consult the map of stations above (under heading 9) to see what I mean. And of course, all wagons will have reliable brakes to hold them in place at each station. Click here for some early sketches/images of the wagons, though these will likely change somewhat, and click here and here for photos of one basic wagon frame now under construction, and click here for a video of Matt (who, for reference, is six feet tall) standing next to, climbing onto, standing on, and sitting on the wagon [added 3 April].
11. USE THE PLATEA STRATEGICALLY. USE FLEXIBLE STAGING PLANS THAT WILL ACCOMMODATE UNPREDICTABILITY.
We strongly encourage productions to make strategic use of the platea — that is, the ground-level area around the wagon, extending as far as is visible and handy. Spectators will position themselves unpredictably throughout the platea and fluctuate in number and arrangement throughout the day (we have no idea at all how many people will show up!); your performers should feel free to move about among them. You can also work light audience management — asking them to clear a path or step back from a certain area (including for safety concerns) — into your production if you wish. The wagon should still be the primary focal point of your action — otherwise the stage picture gets muddy quickly. But there are so many ways to make use of the relationship between wagon and platea (as medieval players did): to make scene changes quick and easy (if the action shifts from the bedchamber to the temple, try setting the temple at ground level!); to represent outdoor vs indoor settings (boarding an ark? entering a house from the street? walk from the platea onto the wagon!); to represent travel (journeying from outer Judea to Bethlehem? start on the wagon, “journey” through the platea to pull focus while your crew switches out a cloth backdrop, and return to the wagon — now it’s Bethlehem!). You can also crouch in the space under the wagon and emerge from there into the platea for surprise entrances.
There is also always a small possibility that something will go wrong with one of the wagons on performance day, for one reason or another, forcing us to take it out of rotation and to move you entirely to the platea-level, without notice. As always, make sure your team is trained to make the best of flexibility and unpredictability.
Most of the platea at Burwash is made up of paved, smooth, wheelchair-accessible pathways, but there are some grassy or raised areas. (especially on the sides of Station 3, though the area directly downstage of the wagon is paved). Audiences will most likely gather under the tree to the south of Station 1 and on the steps to the north of Station 2 [updated Apr 10], but that’s up to them — expect audiences to gather unpredictably and fluidly; expect to play to audience perspectives from ALL directions except directly upstage (compare to a deep thrust stage layout, but with much freer movement around and among the audience). Station 3 will provide the greatest challenge here, because the best audience positions will likely be in the path of the wagon as it approaches, and there will also be the raised lawns to contend with — be prepared here especially to play three-quarter-thrust style [updated Apr 10]. To see a map and video of the wagon stations, see above.
12. PERFORMERS SHOULD FEEL FREE TO WEAR COSTUMES AND MAKE-UP PUBLICLY BEFORE THEIR SHOW BEGINS: THERE IS NO SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF HERE. AT LATEST, ALL PERFORMERS SHOULD GET INTO COSTUME AND GET READY FOR CALL AS SOON AS THE CLUSTER PRIOR TO YOURS HAS ARRIVED AT THE “SET UP STATION.”
As of now, we have no green rooms (though we’re working on it!). Changes requiring privacy can happen in the on-site washrooms or at nearby dorm lodging. All of the dorms arranged through Victoria University are on, or very close to, the performance site — if you’ve reserved any, we encourage you to make use of your rooms for anything you want to have ready to hand. Our PSM Dawn will also have large containers at the set-up station in which performers can store their pocket-sized valuables (phones, wallets, etc) during their performance; Dawn will also have keys to the large locked room inside the main Old Vic building for any valuables you might want to store for large portions of the day (she can’t man that door continually, but she’ll likely be able to open it at strategic points during the day — she’ll be able to about timing).
13. AS SOON AS THE CLUSTER BEFORE YOURS BEGINS ITS FIRST RUN, ASSEMBLE AT OUR “SET UP STATION” TO INSTALL ANY DECORATIONS OR MINOR ADDITIONS ONTO YOUR WAGON STAGE — AS LONG AS THESE CAN BE SET UP WITHIN FIVE MINUTES AND REMOVED IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE. KEEP STAGE DECOR MINIMAL AND LIGHT: IF YOU WANT TO DAZZLE, DO IT WITH COSTUMES AND EASILY PORTABLE ITEMS.
As per the Y25 guide for how we play medieval plays, anything that resembles set design for your clusters must be minimal. You might choose to drape cloth or curtains, for instance, onto the wagons, and perhaps fasten them with shallow tacks (which you must provide) into the thin plywood cladding — these will stay on the wagon as it rolls from station to station, creating a powerful and exciting effect! You might choose to bring a light portable setpiece or two — maybe a decorated throne or table or hellmouth — but unless you can find a way to secure these safely to the wagon as it rolls, you’ll have to you’ll have to have your team members carry these along with them as they move from station to station, setting them up in under thirty seconds as soon as the wagon’s brakes are in place. You can also position portable setpieces in the platea, if you wish, to establish imaginary settings there. But keep it simple: do not initiate any set dressing that requires more than five minutes for set-up and one minute for breakdown, period. We also cannot offer storage for anything you bring, so if you can’t fit it in easily in your lodging or your own van, you probably shouldn’t bring it.
Build a vibrant, visually striking design concept primarily using costumes and props. Use your actors’ bodies and your creativity to bring the wagons and platea to life.
In doing so, feel free to use design influences from biblical Judea, medieval Europe, your team’s own experience of the present day, or any combination of those. But please don’t design or otherwise set your play in a period other than those, and please avoid drawing on experiences of the present day that aren’t truly yours (draw on your own local world, not the headlines).
Some teams have also arranged for optional visual throughlines in design across multiple clusters: many of us have already opted to use Andrew Albin’s signature blue cloth in how they represent the Virgin Mary’s robes (or other notable blue biblical stuff) in our design. If you are in the US, contact Andrew (aalbin@fordham.edu) to get your cloth; if you are in Canada, contact Matt (matthew.sergi@utoronto.ca). If there is a Jesus in your cluster, we also suggest following medieval practice by marking his face with metallic gold (gold facepaint? gold temporary tattoos? glitter? glasses with brass frames? up to you), so spectators can recognize the character easily.
14. It will get dark at night, but the nighttime lighting at Burwash quad is pretty strong, and We plan to add some portable LED “torches.” Consider BUG SPRAY.
I walked the site during and after sunset almost exactly a year out from the performance, to get light levels for our performance day. Sunset was officially scheduled at 9pm, but the sky stays bright and provides ambient light for a while; shaded areas between stations (which are few) started getting significantly dark around 9:20; the sky stopped providing ambient light around 9:30, and felt like full-on night around 9:40. There is ample lighting already embedded throughout all our proposed stations — I still plan to supplement those with portable LED torches, but we could do without them even in deep night: the first and second stations each have a tall, strong, and warmly colored lamppost right there, which gives full, easy visibility to the whole space; the third station has two of those lampposts and is quite bright.
All that said, when night does fall, all teams must take extra caution and step with care: we can’t know the timing at all of which plays will be running after nightfall, really, but Clusters 29-34 should be sure to eliminate running and any other movement that might increase tripping hazards from their staging plans, and should assume that design elements that block overhead light sources (say, brimmed hats) will cast very dark shadows. After nightfall, we must all exert extra care when moving between stations, where the light is less ample (though visibility is still pretty good even between stations — they’ve clearly taken steps to keep the quad lit well at night).
15. Help us recruit volunteer musicians and putters (wagon-pullers) — IN ADDITION TO your own.
Check out our volunteer recruitment page for more information. If you’re local to Toronto, help us reach out to your community to add volunteers. If you’re travelling in, but you’re bringing folks on your team who are musicians (any genre) or would be good wagon-pullers (beyond the three wagon-pullers each team should provide to help drag its own wagon!), encourage them to sign up as volunteers (if they are performers in one of your clusters, just make sure they sign up for a volunteer time-slot at least two hours away from their estimated call times on the running schedule).
16. IT MAY HELP TO READ MATT’S FORTHCOMING YORK 2025 ARTICLE IN ROMARD AHEAD OF TIME (IF YOU’RE NOT A MEDIEVALIST, SKIP TO PAGE 49)
I’ve put together an essay in ROMARD (Research on Medieval and Renaissance Drama) about organizing the York Plays so far — it provides archival contexts for our play-clustering system (and for why we repeat plays at each station); more urgently for our purposes, it also clarifies why (and argues for) the kind of emotional realness and availability in performance that will make this project really sing. Also, the final part of it is a pretty cool interview with a dude from Burning Man. Take a look by clicking here — and thank you to the ROMARD team for allowing me to share this material early. This is a pre-release copy — please do not share it beyond our group. (The ROMARD team adds: if anyone would like information on how to subscribe to the journal or buy a copy of this issue, visit the ROMARD website.)
17. Everyone is cast in the final judgment play — please have all team members learn four lines and follow two staging directions [added april 3].
As we’ve been discussing from the beginning, we’re going to do our grand finale — the York Judgment — flash mob style, in which all Y25 participants will be separated into the Saved and the Damned. Please have everyone in your group follow the directions below (if anyone wants to sit this out, just stand clear — but this will be best with as many people as possible).
Decide ahead of time whether you want to be Saved or Damned.
When the final play begins at the Station to the south of the big building, gather around the wagon in the platea. The crowd should look randomly dispersed. But if you’re Damned, position yourself toward the west side of the wagon (that is, the direction it has just come from). If Saved, position yourself more toward the east side (that is, the direction in which the wagons have been moving forward). We should not look like pre-separated crowds — don’t leave a visible gap.
Matt will play Bad Soul 2. When he starts lamenting, get ready. After his final yell, Christina M. Fitzgerald, playing an Angel and standing on the wagon, will say STAND NOT TOGETHER! PART YOU IN TWO! and will make a grand gesture to SEPARATE us. When she does so, we should all rather suddenly separate, with the Saved moving east and the Damned west, so that it looks like Christina has used her angelic-telekinetic powers to move a random crowd into two distinct areas. Now the gap between Saved and Damned should be clearly visible.
If you’re Saved, wait for Jesus to say the cue line “Therefore: in Heaven you’ll find rest / and joy, and bliss, right next to me.” On that cue, the Saved should say, in as close to unison as possible: “When had we, Lord that all has wrought, / Meat and drink thee with to feed, / Since we in earth had never nought / But through the grace of thy Godhead?” Learn those lines ahead of time.
If you’re Damned, wait for Jesus to say the cue line “You ditched me young, you ditched me old / Therefore: for God’s sake, you’re forsaken.” On that cue, the Damned should say, in as close to unison as possible: “When had thou, Lord that all thing has, / Hunger or thirst, since thou God is? / When was that thou in prison was? / When was thou naked or harborless?” Learn those lines ahead of time.
If you wind up on the wrong side, just play along (and skip the lines).