Lichfield
Lichfield Mystery Plays were a community-based arts project. They were performed every third year until 2022. They comprised 27 short medieval plays, each produced by a different local group, interpreted for the 21st century
The Lichfield Mysteries revival came in the early 1990s. It happened when a local theatre group performed one of the plays from fragments of plays dating back to 1420. Robert Leach combined them with other mystery play cycles, editing and rewriting them to make them accessible to a modern audience.
By 1994, Robert Leach had 24 plays ready. And by 2006, he added another two plays and rewrote versions of The Prophets and The Prologue. The plays are always performed in the ‘original’ medieval English, or some form of it. They progress as the medieval plays did, around various stations.
Lichfield Mystery Plays were performed in the Market Square, Stowe Fields, and the Cathedral. Each play is performed up to six times. The Doomsday play is the only play acted out exclusively in the Cathedral, using the front of the West Door as its interior backdrop.
