For some, college is the first time they venture from home. For me it was the summer before my freshman year of high school. That is the year I went to a sleep away theatre camp called Stagedoor Manor. Stagedoor is known in the theatre community as the theatre camp. It has books and even a movie based on it. It is famed for it’s famous alumni like Lea Michele, Robert Downey Jr., Natalie Portman, and Skylar Astin to name a few, but it will always be home to me.
The first day I arrived I was nervous. I didn’t know a soul and it was the first time I would be spending time away from my family. I was the first one to arrive so I got to pick from the three bunk beds in the small, humid room. I choose one near the window closest to the window fan that gave little to no relief from the heat. Slowly, one by one my roommates entered from New York, Georgia, Ohio, Boston, and Tennessee. It was awkward at first, but when time came to go to the welcome ceremony, we stuck together like glue.
I will always remember that ceremony. When the camp director finished her speech with “Welcome home,” I recall hearing “Thank God,” and, “I wait to hear that every summer." I didn’t understand, but I knew something had to happen to make these kids come back every summer. Camp wasn’t water games and arts and crafts. Camp was work. We had three weeks to put on full productions of shows. At the same time we took classes to hone our craft, but there was something amazing about getting hundreds of theatre geeks from around the world and putting them in one place. It was here that you go impromptu performances of Lady Gaga and “Happy Birthday” in five-part harmony. It was here that I found who I was and I embraced it.
The best part of camp was at 1 a.m. with my roommates. This was “nightly therapy” time. Here we talked until all hours of the morning crying, laughing, and joking about anything and everything. I told these five strangers my deepest, darkest secrets that no one, to this day, knows but them. They were the best first roommates I could have asked for, and though we started with our love for theatre in common, we ended with our love for each other. It amazes me that after only nine weeks of face-to-face contact and four years of not seeing each other we are still great friends to this very day.
It is more than just a camp. Though it is nice to say that famous people went there and I that I got to rub elbows with future stars like Ansel Elgort, it is first and foremost home. If there is one thing I know for certain it is that I would not be here today without it. It will forever be apart of who I am and apart of my experience. And every summer I remember the inside jokes, the shows I was in, and the people I met, and every summer when I think of the new generation walking through the Purell smelling cafeteria, I think of how wonderful my favorite place is and how wonderful it is to be home.
