Latest Folk Play News - November 2014

Here is the latest folk play news:

Christmas and New Year Performances

With the Cheshire Souling season now over, sides elsewhere are gearing up for Christmas. Several groups have already added their performance schedules to the Master Mummers Events List. If you are performing over the Christmas and New Year period, please notify your schedule too at:
http://www.mastermummers.org/events/form.php.

International Mummers' Festival, Gloucester, England

The Festival will be taking place on the following days:

• 5th December - Symposium and Night Mumming
• 6th December - Mumming around the city, workshops, Mummers unplugged.

There are still places available for more performing sides. If you wish to take part, e-mail Stephen Rowley at steve@artension.com. Think of it as a dress rehearsal with knobs on.

The program for the festival Symposium was announced a while ago, but abstracts of the presentations and speakers' biographies are now available at:
http://www.mastermummers.org/gloucester2014/abstracts.php and
http://www.mastermummers.org/gloucester2014/authors.php respectively.

Highlights from the Festival's news:

• The Alberta Avenue Mummers Collective from Canada are confirmed to appear.
  Their leader - Randall Fraser - will also be speaking at the Symposium.
  http://www.mummersunconvention.com/canadian-mummers-confirmed-for-the-festival/
• Artist Helen Marshall will be attending the festival
  Her current project involves photographing individual mummers and groups.
  Festival participants will have the opportunity to have Helen take their photos.
  Helen latetly made the news with her extraordinary photomontage portrait of a WWI soldier.
  http://www.mummersunconvention.com/wwi-photo-artist-at-the-mummers-festival/
• 'What to do with the Body? A practical workshop' with Ollie Crick
  Reviving a fallen knight is usually the crux and the most humorous part of most mummers plays.
  http://www.mummersunconvention.com/what-to-do-with-the-body-a-practical-workshop/

Mummers Festival 2014, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada

The schedule for this year's festival is now available. Various events and workshops will be taking place throughout December, with the big parade round town on the afternoon of December 13th. It's probably not too late to book a flight!
http://mummersfestival.ca/schedule

Whatever you're performing; wherever you're performing it; have fun!

Peter Millington