Paston Footprints

Abstract

In the summer of 2018, Maples created a series of immersive heritage performances at historic sites in Norfolk for the Heritage Lottery-Funded Paston Footprints project, a regional heritage festival. The Pastons were a powerful Norfolk family from 1380-1730 who provided the largest collection of English domestic letters from the medieval and early modern period. The letters document the daily life of members of the Norfolk gentry, alongside war, disease, and, eventually, the family’s financial ruin. As Drama Lead on the project, Maples was commissioned to research, write, and direct several interactive performances combining historical archival material with participatory theatre techniques. Aiming to fulfill the Paston Heritage Society’s plan to “unsettle their audiences’ prior assumptions” of history (Jackson 2000, 18), Maples used audience research to investigate the project's success.