Nestl UK is to sponsor the York Millennium Mystery Plays education programme to the tune of £50,000.

Scarcroft School pupils, top to bottom, Kaha Dobbinson, Miriam Burr and Calum Beattie at today's launch. Picture by Garry Atkinson

The sponsorship deal, announced today, will enable the Mystery Plays board to mount a trio of educational opportunities for young people in the City of York.

Youngsters from a wide variety of primary, senior and special schools will learn more about the Mystery Plays, develop their own dramatic, literary, musical and visual skills and take part in three separate performances.

The education programme will be unveiled to the public in York Minster on Friday, June 25, with a performance of A Creative Mystery, a musical drama inspired by the Creation story. Composer Duncan Chapman will lead this compositional and literature project involving 180 children from Westfield Junior, Scarcroft and Ralph Butterfield Primary Schools.

Tim Bayley, of the early music group York Waits, will lead specially-devised workshops with Galtres, Northfields and Lidgett Grove Special Schools. This will culminate in a processional performance based on the story of Moses and Pharaoh on Sunday, July 4, in the Yorkshire Museum Gardens, as part of the 1999 York Early Music Festival.

At Easter 2000, York Theatre Royal will present A Symphony Of Glass.

Welcoming Nestl's sponsorship, the chairman of the York Millennium Mystery Plays, the Dean of York, the Very Rev Raymond Furnell, said: "With such practical help, the children of York will have the opportunity to take part in so many performances and projects inspired by this outstanding cycle of historic plays."

Sponsorship of the Millennium Dome moved closer to the £150m target today when car giant Ford pledged £12m towards one of the 14 zones.

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