York Mystery Plays Costume Adventure

I've just finished the first of my five weeks in York, where I am one of a team of volunteers making costumes for the 2016 version of the York Mystery Plays. They're (late-)medieval, originally staged by York's various guilds, now resurrected as a major tourist attraction every four years. This blog post focusses on the plays and the places, subsequent posts will introduce people and the actual costuming work.

The Mystery Plays (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Mystery_Plays) are a cycle of 48 episodes telling the Christian story from Creation through the Last Judgement. "God" is a character, as are devils and angels, and of course human beings and that most famous god/man, Jesus. As you can imagine, it's a huge cast. Typically Jesus is played by a professional actor, while all the others are volunteer amateurs from York itself. Many of the supporting roles - such as we costume makers - are volunteer as well.

In the past the plays have been staged in various venues around the city, including outdoors. This year, though, they will be performed in The Minster, a most impressive facility for such a production:

The building where we're working on costumes is right next door, a fifteenth-century structure originally built as a college for clerics who needed some remediation (according to gossip):

My way in goes through that central door with its heavy cast iron latch, through a corridor and another door, then up this grand creaking staircase:

Which staircase looks all the better for having yards of fabric draped over the railing...

One of the grand halls on the second floor is filled with racks and racks of costumes:

There are a few sets of angel wings lying around (chicken feathers, is my guess) - maybe for Gabriel?:

And this is our sewing room - two sergers, six Janomes, a "haberdashery" (gotta love that word) cupboard. The ironing station is around the corner, a large cutting table in another room. That's Fran in the middle, she directs what we do on a daily basis.