RULES AND RESOURCES
FOR YORK 2025 PARTICIPANTS
EACH GROUP BEGINS WITH 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 that you should treat as one continuous play. You can mark the original breakages between pageants visually, or with signs or short music cues, but they 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, outdoors, on wagon stages (see below).
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.)
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. The registration and waiver are still under construction (in consultation with university legal people); check back here in late March to get all the necessary links. 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.
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 BETWEEN 1-2 MINUTES UNDER YOUR ALLOTTED TIME.
Clusters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 are allotted 20 minutes.
Cluster 8 is allotted 18 minutes.
Clusters 31, 33, and 34 are allotted 25 minutes.
All other clusters are allotted 23 minutes.
In addition to those allotments, Clusters 4, 12, 17, and 21 should add 2-3 extra minutes to the start of their clusters, for dialogue to occur during the transition before their play, in the platea (see below) before the stage rolls into each station.
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). Create proactive plans for what to do if you wind up under or over time on the performance day. Our team of ASMs 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 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).
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).
ENCOURAGE FUN, FLEXIBILITY, AND CAMP IN YOUR PERFORMERS. AVOID REALISM; REJECT POLISHED REPEATABILITY. YOUR SHOW SHOULD BE LOUD, PHYSICAL, AND UNPRECIOUS ENOUGH THAT OUTDOOR UNPREDICTABLES WILL FEED 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 are hellbent on deviating from any of the guidelines, at least take the time to ask yourself why — and feel free to chat out your thoughts with Matt.
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 — but be aware that we haven’t touched that document in quite a while, so we may not see further updates you add).
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. We cannot provide any parking, so if you are driving in, you should find and reserve a spot in advance.
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.
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!). 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. Do not schedule your departure from Toronto earlier than 1:30am Mon 9 June.
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, 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 that 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. 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. There is nothing we can do about this either! Again, rehearse with unpredictability in mind.
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. We cannot provide any parking, so if you are driving in, you should find and reserve a spot in advance.
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.
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!). 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. Do not schedule your departure from Toronto earlier than 1:30am Mon 9 June.
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, 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 that 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. 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. There is nothing we can do about this either! Again, rehearse with unpredictability in mind.
RESOURCES FOR YORK 2025 PARTICIPANTS
WE NOW HAVE A ROUGH RUNNING SCHEDULE FOR THE SHOW DAY — ACCESS IT BY CLICKING HERE.
We will have THREE performance stations. Plan to repeat each performance three times, in a row, once at each station.
REHEARSE YOUR PLAYS SO THAT THEY CONSISTENTLY RUN SHORTER THAN YOUR ALLOTTED TIME LIMIT.
All run times have been determined by the relative length of the cluster’s assigned material. If a play finishes early and there are musicians nearby, cue the musicians to fill the space. If a play runs more than 30 secs beyond its allotted time, the ASM will recruit the audience to "ring you out" — do not go overtime! WE HAVE ALLOWED SEVEN MINUTES PER TRANSITION TO MOVE EACH WAGON TO THE NEXT STATION — WE SHOULD AIM TO TRANSITION IN UNDER FOUR MINUTES (AND SHOULD REGAIN TIME WHEREVER WE CAN). REMINDER: YOU CAN BEGIN YOUR PLAY BEFORE YOUR WAGON ARRIVES (and so before your ASM's clock starts)! IF YOURS OPENS WITH, SAY, A LONG SPEECH, MAYBE THAT ACTOR APPEARS AND SPEAKS TO THE AUDIENCE WHILE THE WAGON IS STILL IN MOTION (see Dorrell 98). BE CREATIVE!
Max Time Limit for Clusters 1-7, & 9: 20 minutes
Max Time Limit for Cluster 8: 18 minutes
Max Time Limit for Clusters 31, 33, & 34: 25 minutes
MAX TIME FOR ALL OTHER CLUSTERS: 23 minutes
Target Time for Transitions: 4 minutes
Clusters that MUST use transition time for ground-level staging: C4, C12, C17, C21
If you haven’t already, be sure to review our shared, collaborative resources on how to handle the text and how to play medieval plays as you progress into your development and rehearsal processes. And as always, if there’s anything in those resources that doesn’t fit what you’re doing, holler at us so we can all think and talk it through!
Also, please do contact Andrew — aalbin@fordham.edu — to place your order for our signature blue fabric, which he has kindly offered to subsidize cost-wise where needed. We’re hoping the fabric will create a visual throughline across all our plays: probably mostly used as part of the Virgin Mary’s costume/shawl, but the fun thing will be if multiple groups use the same fabric in different ways.
Christina M. Fitzgerald’s trove of custom-made play editions beyond the Broadview is at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ih1F4hfDt_CbGS0D92TKvHd4xS5v0oMZ?usp=share_link.
Here is the shared file in which we can display our ongoing production script drafts, and invite feedback from each other, is https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RByfNl4IrrLMfpZgZ0IKKHs9VICRktJo?usp=share_link — if you upload yours, please be really clear about what kind of feedback (if any) you’re looking for (I’ve put my Judgment up there by way of example).
Our shared Google Doc, for general ongoing conversations and thoughts, is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/16HPrwD6ZwjHWP7246-Eb4srBTPevJ8facLk4__N2Lbs/edit?usp=sharing. Note that at the top of the page now is an item share prompt — post things you’re looking for, or offer things others seek. (Thanks to Katie for recently re-organizing it and making it look so spiffy!)
You can click here for the video of our first Zoom general meeting.
And click here for the video of Strasz’s excellent talk and Q&A on York wagon staging in October!
SCHEDULE FOR SHOW WEEK (IN DEVELOPMENT)
We’re asking all groups to arrive in Toronto ready to go by noon on Fri 6 June and to stay in Toronto through the morning of Mon 9 June. We’ll also likely find something interesting to do on the Thursday night prior. Remember, each group must arrange ahead of time for its own lodging and food.
Fri 6 June: space open for casual, unofficial walkthroughs. We do not have the space reserved for this day, but the space is always generally open to the public, so groups should feel free to come in and walk the space at whatever time they see fit. Obviously, we cannot run a tech or dress (it would take a whole further 18.5 hours, at least!) — again, you should be rehearsing for this project as you might for a travelling improv show, making flexible staging choices ahead of time that will allow your performers to drop into new environments ready to roll. I hope to arrange for us to gather as a group in the space on Friday evening, at least to welcome everyone, but there are a lot of us — I’m currently in talks with the venue coordinators to see if this is possible.
Sat 7 June: call time 6:00am for EVERYONE (and 5:30am for Fordham and PLS team); shows continue past midnight. We are all each other’s primary audience for this event — be there the whole day, and play the part of a proper medieval audience for your fellow contributors. Each group/person is responsible for taking water breaks and food breaks as necessary; each participant should bring a refillable water bottle, which can be filled at a small fountain just inside the main building (which we’ve also reserved for the day). Ned’s Cafe, across the street from the quad, will have food for sale on the performance date (and may indeed be vending at our event).
Sun 8 June: conference-style talks, plus a Viewpoints physical theatre workshop, indoors at Victoria College. More on this soon.
*IN THE EVENT OF INCLEMENT WEATHER, WILDFIRE SMOKE, OR OTHER CATASTROPHE, WE WILL SWITCH THE SAT AND SUN SCHEDULES. ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST MAKE TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS SO THEY ARE AVAILABLE FROM 6:30AM TO 1AM ON BOTH DAYS.*
SAMPLE FUNDING LETTERS
At Fred’s request, and since as of Aug 12 no participants indicated any concerns with sharing these documents internally (I asked about this at our first Zoom general meeting and in the email directly after), you can now read the letters of support that various groups contributed to our grant application. These are internal documents and shouldn’t be shared beyond participants in York 2025.
NIGHT-TIME LIGHT LEVELS
At Andrew’s request, 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. All that said, there is ample lighting already embedded throughout all our proposed stations — I still want 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). And everyone should bring bug spray for the evening! I’m pretty sure I got bit.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Each contributing group is, of course, responsible for arranging for and providing for the health and safety of its participants in a way that makes the best sense for that group. I defer to the wisdom of each pageant leader to make prudent decisions here, but I do want to encourage you to bring up some questions in your internal meetings: 1) how will we be sure that all of our participants have the food and water they need to get through this gruelling day? [there will be a water bottle-filling station, and places to get food nearby on breaks, but because of the unusual temporality of this performance it might be easy to forget the essentials — so your group might want to build in policies or schedules to make sure everyone is getting what they need]; 2) will there be any elements of our performance that might pose physical safety risks? [if so, reach out to me individually so we can find a time for you to test things out in the space the day before — we do not have the outdoor space reserved on the day before the performance, but the space is open to the public generally, so best bet may be just to stroll onto the grounds when you’re ready]; 3) what is our group’s consensus on mitigating the spread of disease? [Charlene from Unruly Grandeur has weighed in at the shared Google Doc (click here) with some suggestions for how groups might address covid internally — I encourage all groups to check it out.]