The Civil War is in my Capitol

The Pennslyvania Past Players visiting in Philadelphia and the Union League on June 16, 2007. (LB Philly on Flickr)

Trying to work near the Harrisburg Capitol’s Main Rotunda around lunch time on a Wednesday in Summer? Do you hear the simmer of a patriotic song or the baleful cries of a country in turmoil!

Of course you do, because the Pennsylvania State Museum dispatches their Pennsylvania Past Players from the Civil War to the Capitol every Wednesday from noon to 1 P.M. from June 18 until Sept. 10.

Assuming you’re missing their show today, looks like you have just two more chances to see the group interact with children, parents and grandmothers, all wearing their respective central Pennsylvania uniforms – cameras dangling, sweaty Penn State football tee-shirts and style from 1992.

…Yes, I just criticized someone’s style.

I stuck around and watched one of their performances a few weeks ago. It gets serious. One of the actors, a black man who identified himself as a freed slave and active abolitionist brought the house down.

“War is an ugly thing,” he said. “And so is the quest for freedom.”

I want to post the audio I grabbed of them bursting into ‘My Country Tis of Thee’ but I no longer have a site that hosts my audio – let me know if you do.

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