21st Century Mystery Plays
Arena Stage riffed on the mystery play tradition in 2005 with their staging of "Passion Play, a Cycle" by Sarah Ruhl.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/11/AR2005091101477.html
Chester, the last city to acquiesce to Elizabeth I's royal order to stop performing mystery plays, will perform a complete cycles of plays this summer.
http://www.chestermysteryplays.com/
Lincoln celebrates the 30th anniversary of modern mystery play productions in the city this summer - casting is still open!
http://www.lincolnmysteryplays.co.uk/
In 2004, two cycles of mystery plays were performed against the stunning backdrop of Canterbury Cathedral, England, with popular television actors taking the lead roles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/3535002.stm
York, England revived its mystery play tradition in 1951, performing outdoors in St. Mary's Abbey and inside the Gothic cathedral of York Minster. The Friends of York Mystery Plays have created an online archive of the past 50 years.
http://www.yorkmysteryplays.org/index_highres.htm
Scholarship
Middle English texts at the University of Virginia's Electronic Text Centre. The Second Shepherds' Play (in Middle English) is under "The Towneley Plays."
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html
Records of Early English Drama (REED) Centre for Research in Early English Drama. An international research project into English records relating to music, drama, and other entertainment and ceremony from the Middle Ages through 1642.
http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/index.html
Sheep
British Wool Marketing Board
The United Kingdom's only remaining agricultural commodity board, responsible for collecting, grading, selling, and promoting British wool.
http://www.britishwool.org/uk
Worshipful Company of Woolmen
An active British wool institution that traces its history back to the year 1180.
http://www.woolmen.com
More
The Tetbury Woolsack Races
Each May, contestants carrying a sack of wool on their backs race through the streets of Tetbury, Gloucestershire, in a tradition dating back to the 17th century!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/content/articles/2007/05/29/woolsack_2007_feature.shtml
