On Finding Treasure

Mystery Plays of the Goddess

Ariadne Productions staged a series of sacred dramas in the 1980s-90s in Glastonbury’s Assembly Rooms. These pages come from Kathy Jones’ book On Finding Treasure, which tells the story. Kathy wrote, directed and produced the Ariadne mystery plays, performed and supported by the local community.

The plays fuse drama, magic and ceremony – powerful and empowering experiences. The players, mostly amateur, very much became the characters and archetypes to an extent most actors do not – experiencing significant transformation in doing so. Audiences were much moved.

The book On Finding Treasure – Mystery Plays of the Goddess contains the scripts of five plays, with commentaries. The sections extracted here tell Kathy’s story about Ariadne Productions. Kathy isn’t finished with sacred drama – though she’s taking a break, doing other things.