Musical Theatre Drama

I want to write about musical theatre camp the one summer I went, but it was such a height of drama, actor ego, teen angst and hormones that I still feel completely ashamed and horrified thinking about it. Nothing terrible happened. I didn’t get my period by surprise or trip while saying ‘hi’ to some cute boy--what really makes me squirm is remembering one conversation.

This was the summer before 11^th grade; I wasn’t a little kid and it wasn’t a campy camp. I’m well-versed in summer camps; I’ve attended journaling & juggling camp, science camp, Swedish camp--you name it--even two days of painful vacation bible school. This was a camp with some prestige, one I wasn’t at all embarrassed to tell my small-town, non-camp-going friends about. After all, I was about to transfer to a residential arts high school in September for theatre.

I love theatre, I love acting, I love the magic of creating new worlds, but around actors I have become insecure, and it all started that summer. There was, and is, an edge to everything. Every conversation could and would turn to your list of credits, and that was when the real drama began.

There were maybe eight of us, all including ourselves in the Cool Crowd, all playing our parts. I especially remember Zach, who was zitty and obnoxiously gay; the guy with purple Converse high tops and a matching beret on his long, curly blonde hair who was clearly and unabashedly and, yes, theatrically in love with me; and Christian, who was tall and thin with prominent cheekbones and an on-and-off pretty face who I ended up going to high school with but who I never could like after this conversation.

We were lounging in a practice room one afternoon between dance and music rehearsals. I suppose we were sprawled on couches and eating junk food. As it had to with a room full of a critical mass of high school actors, the conversation turned into a competition.

The thing about these nasty little battles for the top of the heap is that they are always veiled. This one started with an off-handed remark, probably a complaint, about a show someone did, as in, “God, the costumes were awful when I was Tommy in Brigadoon!”

That was all it took. “Oh, I know what you mean! When I was Dorothy we had the worst props master and Toto was a ceramic dog and broke halfway through the show!”

The ante upped, the lights were on. The leading role was a bored and exquisitely nonchalant artiste who couldn’t care less if anyone knew how many Oscars were in her closet (there were five, by the way), or who else his agent had repped back before they were a hotshot in Hollywood (Brad Pitt, since you asked).

I watched this game, this dance, with mild curiosity. I had gotten a whiff of it before, but only briefly. I was a small town talent--I got a lot of leads in the plays and there was some cattiness but everyone pretty much accepted their roles, both in the plays and in school life, and expected it.

The pitch rose--Christian, lounging in an armchair with her legs dangling glamorously over the side, tossed her wavy dark hair over a pale shoulder and murmured something about Shakespeare. Maybe her joining the fray was what did it--maybe it was the sense that I would be left behind if I didn’t jump on this ride. I flipped my own hair (much longer and straighter and blonder) over my tan shoulder and said, “Well, my brag story is that I was Maria in West Side Story.”

The room went cold. Only my admirer in his purple beret managed to make eye contact with me, and only for a moment. Christian fixed me with a look of utter disdain. Only now, a dozen years later, do I wonder if it was because I broke the rules. I acknowledged the competition when the game was to win by pretending you weren’t trying at all.

I never felt truly comfortable with actors after that. I was always suspicious, always waiting for the game to start again with a hooded, venomous drawl-- “I remember when I was…”

I left the glitzy proscenium theatre, finding other, purer forms of performance for myself. I still love the stage, the smell of the woodshop and the costume room, the cakey feel of the make-up. I love the magic--I just don’t like the drama.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

28 November 2011