Greater Boston Ritual Dance & Drama

Wedding Mummers Plays

The Cambridge-Somerville area is home to a tradition of mummers plays performed at weddings.  Each of these plays is written specifically for the intended wedding, is typically filled with in jokes about the bride and groom, and is performed at the reception by friends of the bridal couple.

Some information on this tradition, as well as an archive of play scripts, can be found here.  (NOTE: Sadly, this page appears to be gone.  I'll leave the old link here, in case it re-appears, but suggest that anyone interested check the wayback machine.)

Precisely how long this tradition has been going on I don't know, but the above site states that the scripts archived there are in nearly chronological order, and that the earliest one archived may be one of the first ones known.  Neither of the first two scripts at the site includes a date, but the third one notes August 25, 1996.  Other scripts at the site carry dates between then and 2003.

In addition to the plays archived at the above site, four more are known:

• June 15, 2003: For Angela & Jeremy
• October 22, 2005: For Otavia & David
• May 9, 2009: For Lynn & Phill (performed at handfasting)
• June 29, 2014: For Peggy & Alec (performed at reception dance the day after the wedding)
• June 20, 2015: For Lizzy & Mike