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A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Mumming Up 2022: AFC Mummers on December 13

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center Mummers will present their annual mummers' play in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, 10 1st Street SE in Washington, DC, at 1:00 and  3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 13. This year's play is called The Flute of Ice: A Mumming From the Vault. It's 1816 and President Madison visits the North Pole Library to deposit a flute made of ice! But soon Father Christmas, the North Pole Librarian, and Dr. Joculus have to deal with dueling monsters. Will their celebrity guest get to play the flute before it melts? The American Folklife Center’s annual holiday play incorporates traditional songs, music, and folk drama from Library of Congress collections for a zany and fun time in the Great Hall. It's open to the public, so come on in and see us perform!

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

2020 AFC Mummers’ Play Podcast: The Peaceful Transfer of Mumming

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In the week or two before Christmas, staff members of the American Folklife Center engage in a dramatic, comedic, and musical performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress. The performance is based on traditional mummers’ plays, and allows us to put our research skills into play alongside our more playful impulses. This year, we realized we couldn't perform our mummers’ play live, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We didn't want to let the pandemic defeat us, though, so we decided to do our play anyway--just in a different way. We've been recording our podcast, Folklife Today, remotely throughout the pandemic, we reasoned. So why not do the mummers' play as a podcast episode, sort of like an old-time radio play? The audio, play script, and photos are all here in this blog!

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Masking and Mumming for the Holidays, Thanksgiving Style!

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Happy Thanksgiving! In this post, we’ll take a look at a set of interesting photos from the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division. They depict a custom most people nowadays don’t know much about: Thanksgiving masking. Thanksgiving maskers, like trick-or-treaters on contemporary Halloween, used to go door to door, begging for handouts. They also …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Mumming Up: AFC Mumming on Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center Mummers will present their annual mummers' ; play in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, December 11. It's open to the public, so come on in and see us perform! This year's play is called AFC Mums While Washington Burns: A Conservation Mumming. It's 1814 and the Capitol has just been burned by the British, so James Madison throws Library collections in a dogsled and heads for the conservators at the North Pole Library.

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

FrankenMumming: The 2018 AFC Mummers’ Play

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: Every year, in the week of the Library’s holiday party, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress.  Dressed in costumes that range from striking to silly, we sing, act, …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Mumming Up Soon! AFC Mumming is Wednesday!

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center Mummers will present their annual mummers’ play in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, December 12. It’s open to the public, so come on in and see us perform! This year’s play is called FrankenMumming: An Arctic Monster Library Modernization Mumming. It features innovators-in-residence …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

St. George and the Arrearage Monster: A Mumming in Process

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: Every year, in the week of the Library’s holiday party, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress.  Dressed in costumes that range from striking to silly, we sing, act, …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Hipster St. George and the Unicorn: A Web Archiving Mumming

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: Every year, in the week before Christmas, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress.  Dressed in costumes that range from striking to silly, we sing, act, rhyme, and dance …