PHILLIP Breen is a prodigiously busy director with a list of engagements up to the end of 2017.

He may have directed for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but being at the helm of the 2016 York Minster Mystery Plays is such a demanding project that he is assisted by an associate director, Becky Hope Palmer, and four assistant directors, Dinos Psychogios, Sophie Paterson, Sue Harris and Tom Straszewski.

"It's been a great thrill to work with five really exciting directors, organising not only the cast of 200, but also under that, there's the whole understudy planning that Becky and the assistants have worked on," says Phillip, looking out across Max Jones's set design at the start of tech week in the Minster.

"We have cover for every part, even down to those who have to put the holes in the crosses."

Rehearsals began on January 13, when initially Phillip had to balance commitments between directing Theatr Clwyd's production of Cyrano de Bergerac in Mold on weekdays and devoting weekends to rehearsing Mike Poulton's newly revised script from the Millennium Mystery Plays.

"There have been a lot of changes from the 2000 production. Me and composer Richard Shephard went to see Mike in Norfolk, where we had three days of going over the script word by word, making cuts and amendments," he says. "The script is leaner and has been re-ordered a little from seeing how it played 16 years ago, so Mike has come at it afresh."

Plays change and resonate with the times, none more so than the Mystery Plays. "They always change with every tick of the clock; a play changes as you respond to the world," says Phillip.

"But by necessity, we have had to take big decisions that we have to stick to, and a lot of them were made last September, like Max's design with the big stairway and bringing the stage out into the audience. They were the early decisions, but others have come out of working in the rehearsal room, where someone might make a suggestion that we then think about."

York Press:

Director Phillip Breen in rehearsals for the 2016 York Minster Mystery Plays. Picture: Duncan Lomax

Explaining his casting of Philip McGinley as Jesus in the one professional role in the community company, Phillip says: "The first thing you're looking for is that he's really good, he's the right age, and I'd seen him a lot on the television and in theatre productions, like in D H Lawrence's The Daughter-in-Law at the Sheffield Crucible [in March 2013], where his performance was tender and lovely.

"He's also slender, so I knew he'd look good on the Cross, and he has a wonderful, everyman quality about him. He's a down-to-earth northern lad, who went to the same college as me, Winstanley College in Wigan, where the theatre department is really strong."

Philip McGinley had a profile from being in Coronation Street and Game Of Thrones, "which helps us". "But what really mattered is that he had the right temperament for working on a production that's a very different piece from professional theatre productions. He gets on with people; he's not precious; he's a nice lad who's doing the Mystery Plays for the same reasons as me and Max Jones, the designer," says Phillip. "When else might he get the chance to play Jesus in the Mystery Plays in York Minster. He'll be 50 in 16 years' time!"

Phillip has savoured working with such a diverse cast: the essence of the Mystery Plays each time they are staged. "We have children aged ten; ladies in their 80s; we have retired priests; vicars; people who work in shops; stay-at-home mums who aren't staying home much at the moment," he says.

"We have writers; journalists; young actors like Toby Gordon, playing The Devil, who I taught at LAMDA. There are behavioural psychologists, corporate lawyers. It's only when you get to spend a lot of time with diverse people that you start to really understand how others think."

The York Minster Mystery Plays runs from tonight until June 30. Tickets are available at yorkminster.org/mysteryplays2016, on 01904 623568 or in person from York Theatre Royal’s box office at the De Grey Rooms or at York Minster’s visitor admission desks.