Things to Do

A Midland Summer Night’s Dream: Midland Summer Mummers

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Tony Maples Photography

 

Celebrating its 69th season, Midland’s Summer Mummers is the longest-running summer theater in the Lone Star State, and if you ask supporters, there’s no real question as to why. Melodrama, a shared theme of stage, screen, and life, still abounds in its performances at the Yucca Theatre. As to the origin of their name, while searching for a way to raise funds to improve their facility in 1949, participants of the Midland Community Theatre mentioned the word “mummers” (term for highly-skilled street performers in medieval times). Putting two and two together, a star was born!

A Midland Summer Night’s Dream: Midland Summer Mummers

Photo: Facebook/Summer Mummers

At present, in the restored 1929 Yucca Theatre, their cast and crew continue to practice and perform. Their current performance is entitled, “Psychedelic Trip to the Summer of ’69,” a.k.a., “…Dude Where’s My Time Machine,” from an original script by a local Midland, Texas author. Running for three months out of each year (normally mid-June, July, and August), they will typically do 30 performances over the course of a summer. Profits from the Summer Mummers nightly shows directly benefit the Midland Community Theatre, regardless of the two being completely separate entities. And the success of their summer season is estimated to contribute 25 percent of the entire Midland Community Theatre’s budget.

A Midland Summer Night’s Dream: Midland Summer Mummers

Photo: Facebook/Summer Mummers

Not only that, but audience participation isn’t frowned upon. Every year is a new play (although some have been so popular they returned for encore seasons) and on any given night, the crowd can cheer or applaud the good guys, and heckle or boo the bad! Another tradition of the Summer Mummers is that popcorn-throwing is practically encouraged, to the point where so much gets flung onstage that dozens of trash bags are filled at the end of a show. Their finale is just as fun as the melodrama it follows, including an olio of dance numbers, vaudevillian-comedy routines, a sing-along, and a can-can style finale. If this sounds like a fun night out, you wouldn’t be wrong. To learn more, and to see what the hub-bub is all about, visit the Summer Mummers website for the Midland Community Theatre, or check out their Facebook page. This is one Texas-sized show that they say “can’t be explained, it must be experienced!”