The Lords of Misrule are a medieval amateur dramatics society within the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York. This summer, the society has come together to remotely produce an audio drama of The Canterbury Tales.
This submission documents how an amateur dramatics group, having lost their usual sense of place in the city of York, moved online as a community and continued to thrive. We explore how the meaning of both place and community was transformed in this process, and invite readers to listen to our audio drama, which is free to listen to on YouTube.
On 14 March 2020, we, the Lords of Misrule, took our bows on our final show of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Afterward, we gathered our costumes and headed for the after-party. Cast and friends gathered in the living room for speeches of thanks. Plans were made for the next performance in the summer - our biggest of the year.
The party wound down in the small hours of the morning. Thanks for a good show, we said on the doorstep. See you soon.
Two days later, on the 16th, non-essential contact was banned. By the 23rd, the UK was in lockdown.
Established over forty years ago at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, the Lords of Misrule (known as Lords for short) put on at least three performances a year, specialising in medieval and early modern drama. By bringing to life the spirit of classic texts, we enjoy a reputation of academic rigour and textual accessibility in academic circles and beyond.
Over the years, Lords has become a close-knit - though not exclusive - group. Currently, we are predominantly made up of postgraduate students from both the Centre and across the University, and local alumni. With forty years also comes a bigger, extended family of former members who stay in touch with fond memories of performances past.
When the pandemic took hold and it became clear to us that we would not be able to meet or perform for the foreseeable future, our sense of community and place was in immediate peril. Without the ability to meet and perform, what were we?
It never occurred to us, however, to not put on a show. Lords would adapt. It would go online.
Our first thought was to perform a closet drama: medieval texts that were quite literally performed by isolated communities such as nunneries. It seemed a perfect combination of historical accuracy and current circumstances. However, our own translation of The Canterbury Tales we had performed in 2016 emerged as a suitable text for an audio drama - at the core of each tale was the narrator, who relayed every piece of the action to their listeners.
In the spirit of coming together at home, we reached out to past members of the group across the world in order to reinforce our sense of our own continuity and legacy when casting. It was something we would not otherwise have been able to facilitate, and decided that it was worth a try.
Of the thirty people to whom we reached out, nearly all responded with an enthusiastic yes. Our community was not only intact, but had grown in numbers and was stronger than ever.
We were faced with a new set of parameters, and the tools of our trade - the costumes and props lovingly passed down over the years - were inaccessible, as were our traditional performance venues of local churches with whom we have cultivated long relationships. Now, we had Zoom. It transformed the way we approached this text. Where an actor would have once climbed into a church pulpit, or a character would have approached an audience member for comedic effect, we had only our voices and a sample of sound effects.
Place became an editing trick. The voice actors for Palamon and Arcita, in the Netherlands and Ireland respectively, did not languish in a prison themselves, but the sound of dripping water and a touch of reverb made it so. Birdsong captured Emelye’s longing for a return to nature where a green dress would have been the obvious costume choice. Tavern ambience conjured up a group of tired pilgrims getting together to tell some tales. The sound effects were used to construct a place, and the actors occupied it. It took hours of patience, editing, and a new approach to directing and producing. It took a community.
We are exceptionally proud of the efforts of this cast. When it seemed that a pandemic would disrupt the continuity we had so carefully nurtured as a group, our community persevered and thrived. We have tackled the challenges and embraced the opportunities this change has presented, and have done what the Lords of Misrule has and will always do - put on a show.
The end result is a testament to how the Lords of Misrule continue to provide a sense of place and community even when faced with losing both. The Canterbury Tales is now free to listen to on YouTube - we hope that you enjoy it.
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