WAITs Wanted

Medieval York’s dramatists, in order to show their plays to everyone across their city, had each play repeat multiple times at multiple stations. That means a very long performance day, with roughly 5-minute-long transitions every 20-25 minutes or so! Most likely, the dramatists turned to the local waits, resident musicians officially appointed by the medieval city, to bring life to these transitions and keep the energy alive.

So we need waits — we are looking for volunteer musicians! We welcome musicians of any genre, solo acts or groups, playing music from any period and location, as long as your music can be easily started and stopped on cue, and can be heard clearly and powerfully outdoors without amplification. (It’s a bonus if you can play some variation on a medieval or early modern tune, and if you can play while walking alongside the cast of the play as they move, but these aren’t required.) If you play any horns or any brass instruments, please consider signing up for the final musician session — the York plays’ finale calls for horns and brass!

This is a volunteer opportunity only: there won’t be any opportunity to collect or charge money, and we unfortunately cannot pay honoraria to any of our participants.

We’re hoping to have two music acts ready to play, located at opposite ends of our outdoor space, at all times — we’re asking music acts to sign up in three-hour chunks of time, during which you’ll likely have 6-8 opportunities to play an interlude of 4-7 minutes.

IMPORTANT!!!: All of the time-slots below are for volunteers to commit to showing up at their start-time, on the BURWASH QUAD at the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (find us at 93 Charles Street, just east of the Bader Theatre), on Saturday June 7 — AND to showing up, if necessary, on Sunday June 8 instead (in case it rains on the 7th!). If you can’t reliably attend for your full time-slot on BOTH days (we’ll only need you for one, but we need you to be available for both), please do not volunteer.

But if you can — and if you’re interested — please consider signing up for more than one session! Every musician will still get to see most of the plays, but will get to know certain plays especially well. (We can’t guarantee which plays will be running at exactly which time and we can’t meet requests to volunteer except during the full 3-hour chunks specified below.)