TIME is running out to see the Making The Mystery Plays photographs in the Museum Gardens, York. On display on three large boards, they form a timeline of the creation of the York Mystery Plays 2012 from November 2011 to July this summer.

The boards will come down once Damian Cruden and Paul Burbridge’s production ends on Bank Holiday Monday.

Project coordinator and curator Eloise Ross has been responsible for putting together the photographic documentary, working with a core group of 17 volunteer photographers to capture all aspects of the community’s involvement in staging the £1 million production, from initial auditions to the final dress rehearsal.

Almost 3,500 photos were submitted to the group’s photographic pool. From there, Eloise had the difficult task of whittling them down to a final shortlist of 60 to 70, and those images were then used to create a display under eight themes: story, tradition, community, location, performance, religion, guilds and generations.

To complement the Museum Gardens boards, group members Denise Curran, Allan Harris and Nick Ansell have put together a selection of 40 photographs, taken during the dress rehearsals, for display in York Theatre Royal’s exhibition corridor until early September.

“The members of the York Mystery Plays Photography Group, who would normally work alone, really embraced the community spirit of the Mystery Plays by working together to ensure that as many elements of the production as possible were captured,” says Eloise.

“It just goes to show how well the people of York can pull together.”