Do What You Will: ASC Theatre Camp Talent Show

Karl Dickey and Liam Rowland 

             Once every session, the campers get a chance to showcase their diverse talents to their peers during an ASC Theatre Camp event called “What You Will .” As the name might suggest, the campers can perform whatever they feel personally accomplished at or want to do. What You Will is a break from our standard rehearsal schedule that allows the campers to perform a wide variety of pieces, some quirky, most hilarious, all engaging, to their fellow campers.

            While not every What You Will has MCs, Karl Dickey and Liam Rowland volunteered for the task as part of their talent. Clad in uniform dinner jackets and bowties, sporting sunglasses and fancy hats, this hysterical pair introduced each of the twenty-seven pieces put on during What You Will. Both Karl and Liam are talented musicians, so they frequently introduced their peers in song. For example, before Noël Grisanti and Maggie Doyle performed the famous unpinning scene from Shakespeare’s Othello, Liam and Karl threw out a couple jokes and performed the “Othello Rap” from the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Our MCs flew by the seat of their pants, providing hilarious, often improvised, introductions for their peers.

Hugh Raup "hypnotizes" Counselors into Contortion

            As previously mentioned in this blog, our campers this session are a particularly musical bunch, but it has never been so apparent as at What You Will. Be it performing original songs, covering well known favorites, or mashing up popular songs to create something new, our campers wowed us with their  creative, instrumental, and vocal prowess. In addition to musical abilities, many campers revealed their varied dance abilities. While we saw some magnificent traditional pieces, such as Caroline Cromwell’s ballet, some were refreshingly less conventional. Cyler Winnie did a modern robot dance fluidly, while Elise Ammondson did her own soft shoe/ hard shoe mashup Irish jig take on “Cotton-eye Joe.” Some of our campers decided to doff conventional talents in favor of physical feats. Hugh Raup decided to amaze his fellow campers by doing a series of contortions that culminated in the “hypnotization” of four counselors for a group number.

Carmen Paddock Performs a Monologue

            Some of the scenes that were being performed were original pieces written by our very own campers. Elizabeth Williams, Annalise Kiser, and Rachel Poulter-Martinez each wrote different pieces. Annalise chose to read her own work aloud while Elizabeth and Rachel  had given scenes to their peers and asked them to perform staged readings of them. Both Rachel and Elizabeth acted as directors for their scenes, and took the time before the show to gather props to bring them to life. In performance, the pieces were thoughtful, dramatic, and dark, and they well harnessed the talents of their peers. It was lovely to see this facet of our campers’ talents on display. It was interesting to see the fruits of the directorial positions that some of the campers took.

            The strong group energy that resonates during each camp activity has been remarkable. During many of the different musical pieces, the audience members would often chime in by clapping, snapping, or even stomping to the beat. Always respectful of the onstage performer, they got involved only they were encouraged to, always adding to and not detracting from the piece. This sense of group camaraderie was particularly tangible during Hugh Raup’s performance of “Mariner’s Revenge” by The Decembrists. He sang it with no instrumental accompaniment, so, taking the lead of counselor Dan Stevens, the campers beat out a percussive line to add to the song.

What You Will has consistently been a lovely night where all of the members of camp get together to watch and support each other’s abilities. What You Will is voluntary, so everyone who performed wanted to showcase and share their accomplishments with the camp. It is a beautiful evening of support, humor, creativity, and appreciation, and it demonstrates what a large pool of talent our directors at their disposal to incorporate into our upcoming productions. Though What You Will was a private, camp-only event, our performances of Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI and Much Ado About Nothing as well as Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and No King premier on Sunday, August 5th for a free and open to the public one day event. Please join us to see more of what our talented campers can do!

 --Madeleine M. Oulevey

The Lion in Winter and The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Going to see the plays at the Blackfriars Playhouse is one of the biggest perks of ASC Theatre Camp. Friday night, we found all the campers no longer in movement clothes and T-shirts, but decked out in seersucker and peacock prints. Bowties, vests, heels, and lace abounded, and as we waited by the Playhouse for the go-ahead from the Box Office staff, cameras flashed and Madeline, one of our camp alums who happened to attend Friday’s performance, received dozens of hugs from returning campers, everyone was giddy with excitement to see the show.

And what a show. We saw The Lion in Winter on Friday night, a show full of passion and history (both political and familial). As always, it is a pleasure to see these young artists so enraptured by the work of the ASC actors, actors they’ve been studying with all week in their workshops. A first year camper, Maggie, burst out, “I didn’t know I was studying with gods!” Since these campers already know and love so many of the actors, when those actors’ characters have anything sad to say, they receive from our enthusiastic section front and center of the theater a chorus of sympathetic “oooh!”s. At intermission, I overheard campers trying to figure out if, at any point, the characters were telling the truth. The characters in this drama layer deceits on deceits, and just when you think you’ve figured out who wants what from whom, you find you’re wrong. But however complex the windings of the plot, Lion’s dialogue is smart and quotable; since watching this show, the campers have been throwing around phrases such as, “Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!” or “I never cease to marvel at the quickness of your mind” or “Hush dear, mother's fighting” or “You stink. You’re a stinker and you stink” -- all in good natured fun.

Saturday night we all returned to the theater to see The Two Gentlemen of Verona. This was a whole different experience because now we got to see the whole troupe performing, and we got to watch the actors working with Shakespeare’s text. Watching the campers is a real treat, as I see them drinking it all in, eyes wide, minds open, learning by seeing professionals at work. Though work seems like too strong a phrase. The campers clap and sing along to the pre-show and interlude songs, and they contemplate the subtleties of iambic pentameter while eating gummy bears. And after the show, conversations exploded about Shakespeare’s problematic ending, about the themes (friendship? what makes up one’s self? serving and service? loyalty?) or about the performance choices. These conversations continued back to the dorm, to the gelato shop, even into brunch and to the day on the lake the next day.

They came singing...

Every year the music in ASC Theatre Camp is a treat, but I must say that this session is especially full of strong musicians eager to play and sing together. The campers all came to make theater together, but many of the campers this year came to make music as well. From the first day these campers arrived, already the lounges were full of songs mashed up together, songs they were sharing and learning and teaching to each other. 

In their auditions, they sang together in groups, many of them singing with people they’d only just met, learning a song fresh and new to them all. Emma has already written beautifully about the first workshop with Greg Phelps, but I thought I’d add in a bit from my own experience playing music along with the campers in the workshop. When Greg gave everyone a five minute break, rather than hanging around chatting, a group of the campers started pulling out their instruments and making up a song all on their own, in anticipation of creating a song all together. As the workshop progressed and the instrumentalists and the vocalists worked on different parts of the process, they’d take turns, stopping to listen to each other, and would inevitably freak out about how the music comes together. “That harmony is flippin sweet!” they’d say, or, “Yeah, trumpet!” or just burst out with, “It’s so good!” These adolescents know how to give and take in a creative setting, and by working together, they create an artistic whole much larger than the sum of its parts. 

But lest you think this exuberance and talent for music is only in workshops and free time, please know it comes into the rehearsals as well. Stopping in for a rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing, the whole cast and artistic team for that show gathered together to brainstorm ideas for the various moments of music in that play. Someone suggested that they play “I need a Hero” for the dance, and immediately one Sarah, one of the campers said, “oh, I can play that on my uke, but I don’t have it with me.” Laura, our Dogberry chirped in with “you can borrow mine, I’ve got it with me,” and in no time Sarah performed her rendition of the song, and though I don’t know what choices they will eventually make, that ukulele rendition of the song went straight to the heart of the cast, and everyone applauded her skills. 

The campers do not make all the music of this camp. Several of the counselors have studied music in college, and the lullabies to the campers this session are particularly sweet. Zach, one of the counselors, is a prodigious guitarist (you can see his videos here), and two nights ago instead of regular lullabies he played an original work for the campers before they went to bed.

In addition to all of this, the Heifetz International Music Institute is sharing our campus with us this summer. Tonight some of us will attend a faculty recital of some of the most respected string teachers in the world. I know it will be a unique experience, as campers don’t usually go listen to Dvorak or Brahms when they’re at summer camp, but I am excited for the opportunity, and I know the kids who go will love it. Whatever it is that makes music important to us as people, I know that the love and camaraderie it builds is a big part. There may be more skilled or trained musicians in Staunton this summer, but I think you might be hard pressed to find anyone who loves making music more than the people in this camp.