Music, Music, Music—

Published on November 15, 2017November 13, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Picture a sheet music with notes, and then picture the notes of music leaving the page—floating over the camp, through the lodge dining hall, past the flagpole, down to the campfire, back up to Chapel Hill and down through the cabins of all the little campers. Music tied the camp together and those notes were not invisible. They poured forth from every girl who attended camp and they left lasting impressions. The piano, phonograph and music were at home in the lodge, and many girls learned their first tunes there.

The piano was a memory for Kerry Weber (1952), who decided no one knew any other song except “Chopsticks”, but the happy songs remain in her mind. When friends threw her a surprise party for her fiftieth birthday, someone mentioned Camp Maqua and ten girls stood up and proceeded to sing “We Are The Girls From Camp Maqua”.

Barb Ballor (1951-55) asked me to picture five elderly ladies singing as she and her four girlfriends met recently in Florida for a get-together– all in the kitchen singing the same song.

The rendition of one of the Camp Maqua songs came to me from Maribeth Morton (1974-75). “We welcome you to Camp Maqua, We’re mighty glad you’re here. We’ll send the air reverberating with our cheer. We’ll sing you in, we’ll sing you out, To you we raise a mighty shout: Hail, hail, the gangs all here, and you’re welcome to Camp Maqua”.

Mary Jane Keschman (1944-54) hated getting up early to raise the flag, but she loved the evenings at camp when the counselors would begin at the caretaker’s cottage and walk around to serenade all the cabins with slow, sad songs.

Music, Song and Dance–

Published on November 13, 2017November 13, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Music, dance, song and instruments played a huge part of the camp experience during every era, from the early years up until the closing. One of the earliest memories belonged to a camper who stopped by the lodge in 1987. A flood of nostalgia swept over her, as she sat down at the original camp piano and played some of the old Maqua songs.

“One thing that attacted me from the start was that we sang most of the time,” said Meg Dahlem, twenties’ camper. “On the bus coming from Bay City, through Pinconning, Standish, Twining, Turner, Whittemore, and Hale, we sang loudly, so as to attract the attention of the townspeople, the same song over and over—from city limits to city limits. It was always, “Oh Camp Maqua, we sing to thee. The place where every girl longs to be. Among the girls and counselors gathered round. We are the CAMPERS. Are we a preppy crew? Well, yes, I guess! We are the same that put the aim and fame. Always game, in Camp Ma—qua!”

“We had some little blue covered songbooks, about the size of a checkbook, with the words to many of the songs we used, but of course, we knew most of them by heart after a few times around,” wrote Meg’s friend Harriet Crumb, twenties’ camper. “Most of them had hand, arm or body motions to accompany the singing. We sang at the table, and around the campfire, either on the beach or by the big fireplace.”

“As I attended other girls’ camps during those years, I learned that part of the criteria for a good camp was the quality of these camp songs that were used. They were not school songs, nor popular dance tunes. They were CAMP songs. One very popular one, adjustable to the year, was: “1—-9—-2—-9, At Maqua Camp, No other year the same. Every girl a comrade true. Whatever school or name or fame. 1—9—-2—-9. At Maqua Camp, Sunset and evening glow. But it’s the inspiration most, That makes us love it so.”

“During one of the first two years that I was at Maqua, we put on a show for our own entertainment. It was such a success—at least we thought so, that we went to Hale and put it on for the townspeople! I cannot remember much about it. I was, of course, one of the younger girls. (Save that it featured a long song that was a parody of “Among my Souvenirs”), she wrote.

Drama–1975

Published on November 8, 2017November 8, 2017 by Kathy Baker

DRAMA REPORT 1975—Lynne Bigelow and Karen Selby

The drama department offered drama games, creative drama plays and skits and the “Loon”. The drama games class was offered with no size limit and never exceeded five people. Lynne felt it was sometimes difficult to interest both older and younger campers with the same games, except for charades, which she found to be popular.

She started with charades, on to mirroring, pantomime, storytelling and other games. Plays and skits were neglected due to class size and what she considered to be suitable written plays. There were only two drama nights and they performed skits, which were held on the drama porch.

Her aim was “to get the girls to be able to assume another character or role without embarrassment and just have plain old fun”, but she felt that some of the students looked at drama as a “fill in class”, which she felt hurt the motives of the class and in turned rubbed off onto the rest of the class and herself.

The first session of plays and skits did a skit around tricks that campers play on counselors, which they created themselves. Monologues and audience participation skits were also enacted. The third session creative drama class put on a series of short skits on the archery field, which had been taken from a book in the drama department. She felt creative original skits were better.

They rarely used costumes, but occasionally a dress or hat was taken from the box of costumes, but they felt the clothes were in very bad shape.

“I feel that the Drama Department could have been better if I had been better prepared,” wrote Lynne. “All in all I found it lots of fun and I hope the campers did too.”

Drama–1974

Published on November 6, 2017November 5, 2017 by Kathy Baker

DRAMA REPORT 1974—Mary Toburen, Director and Val Unger, assistant,

“This year I attempted to give the girls a general ideal of what drama is. Most of them greeted the thought of drama with “Ick”. During the week of class I kept things light and fun. There’s so little time that I figured if I could open their minds to the subject, so some one else later on could start without the prejudice feelings, it would be time well spent,” Mary wrote.

She included plays and skits, which were usually taken by the older campers; creative drama with an emphasis on creativity; and one puppet class. “I only offered one puppet session because I found very little interest in the class,” wrote Mary. “It was a difficult class for the younger ones, who were the most interested, because it made great demands on voice control and coordination. The lack of enthusiasm may have stemmed from the fact that I personally disliked the class.”

Judging by the size of her drama games class, Mary found it to be popular and well-liked, perhaps due to the fact there were no performances. Occasionally the girls did commercials for the theatre nights. A second week class was rehearsal, which was needed and freed up other hours for other classes.

Drama-1973

Published on November 1, 2017October 28, 2017 by Kathy Baker

DRAMATICS REPORT SUMMER OF 1973—Karen MacIntosh

Her report in the beginning was a repeat of Christine Foshag’s from the previous year. Under “Physical Facility and Structure”, Karen noted that the costumes that were to be used for drama were moved to the porch and some costumes had been donated by “The Bay City Players”.

She added, “The porch is not always the best place to have drama on a rainy day. One hundred and five screaming Murder Pin campers hinder your rehearsals quite a bit.”

They held the performances at the rear of the lodge, and Jan’s room and the sports porch were used as entrances. They never used curtains, as they had few scene changes, but all the tables were pushed against the wall and benches served as their “plush theatre seats”.

She kept the classes small, except for puppets and creative drama and included interpretive reading and dance in her lesson plans. She set up her puppet stage with two eating tables—one length-wise and one in front on its side. The girls sat behind and reached up with the puppets, sometimes with their lines taped to the back. The marionettes had a table, side down with a sheet hanging from a rope between two entrances and the small benches were located behind. She also used sock, stick, lightbulb and finger puppets.

The performances included “The Wizard of Maqua”, based on the “Wizard of Oz” using lightbulbs, “Sue Van Winkle”, based on “Rip Van Winkle” with socks, and “Dawn Gershinpan”, which was Peter Pan with stick puppets, “Jack In the Beanstalk” with marionettes and “Barbarella” with finger puppets.

Drama-1972

Published on October 30, 2017October 30, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Drama Director’s Report–1972 Christine Foshag

“Almost everyone wishes at times that for a little while at least she might become some other person—or a bird, an imaginary creature, or some animal”, wrote Christine in her first paragraph of the report. “A play, skit, creative dramatics or a puppet show may give her the perfect opportunity to be someone else.”

She described the values attributed to participation in dramatics, which included thinking creatively and independently, the ability to observe and then act like some other person, grow in understanding people with differing viewpoints, controlling emotional release, experience thinking on one’s feet, expressing ideas clearly and just plain fun! Add to that poise and initiative that come from expressing and the impression it leaves once it has been enacted and appreciated as an art form.

The puppets allowed the campers to act together without the fear of facing an audience self-consciously. They learned to come in on cue, listen and develop their voices. The skits allowed the campers to “throw” themselves into the part, acting and reacting with exaggeration. The plays allowed the campers to become real people for short periods, despite the length, and they were able to react to a given situation.

She said, “The unique thing about creative drama is that it is always improvised. When a story is put in dramatic form, the play is planned by the group, and then played with spontaneous action and dialogue.” She explained that it was different at each playing, an immediate experience and talent was not necessary, but the more unlike the character the child plays, the less self-conscious she will be.

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