American mother keeping various curios in playing area (5,4)

'playing area' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'american mother keeping various curios' is the wordplay.
'american mother' becomes 'mom' (mom is a kind of mother. I am not sure about the 'american' bit.).
'keeping' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters kept inside).
'various' is an anagram indicator.
'curios' with letters rearranged gives 'usicro'.
'mom' placed around 'usicro' is 'MUSIC-ROOM'.

'in' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?