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.

The play performances included “The Three Counselors” based on the “Three Bears”, “Who’s There?” and “The Fatal Quest”. The creative dramatic performances were “A Day In The Life of a Chicken”, which was interpretive dance to dueling banjos and a monologue on “My Boyfriend”.

She based much of the drama on camp, using staff and campers, and many of the staff kept their puppets as a reminder of the fun. Naomi was her assistant, who she described as energetic in her duties of scenery, props, costuming and line memorization. Karen handled scheduling of classes, lesson plans, writing scripts, typing and teaching classes, and Thursday night productions.

She had a few rules—no-one was to come on the drama porch unless it was for class, no costume sharing with the rest of camp, only take costumes from gray box, and no sitting on the ping pong tables. She requested more supplies in the form of “regal and character type cotton material”, books, paints and brushes, pencils and markers, thread, needles, yarn, string, curtains, and a separate building to perform. Her last page contained illustrations of the various puppets and stage set-ups.

Were any of you in Karen’s class? Did you participate in  the puppet shows?