Piggery drama camp closing out a successful fifth year
The curtain goes up this afternoon on the closing performance for this year’s drama camp at the Piggery Theatre. Now in its fifth year, the two week camp offers teens in the area the opportunity to delve into the world of live performance in a way no other local venue offers.
“We have 17 or 18 kids just hanging around the theatre,” said director and local theatre superfan Mead Baldwin, praising the Piggery for the freedom the camp receives to explore and imagine. “After five years they essentially just give us the run of the place.”
Baldwin explained that the two weeks of the camp, split up to allow the two directors and three teen staff members time to recuperate, cover broad and diverse parts of life in the theatre. While the whole program focuses on the production of a final show on a particular theme, activities and small-group workshops over the course of each session give the opportunity to try out improvisation techniques, explore musical threatre, develop skills like vocal projection, and learn about the technical side of the theatre as well.
“It’s not a dictatorship,” Baldwin shared. “The kids are all involved in the decision making and there is very little restriction.”
Cole Clemenhagen says that coming to the camp changed the course of his life. Brought to the program in its first year by his grandmother, the young actor recalled being a young energetic boy with no particular interest or past experience with acting.
“When Mead was first putting on the camp five years ago she signed me up and it was the first acting I ever did,” Clemenhagen recalled, explaining that he auditioned last year and was accepted to the Canterbury Arts High School in Ottawa. “It’s the best drama program in the country,” he added.
Claiming that he has been present for every day of the drama camp’s existence, the young actor explained that he went from being an eager young camper to being a staff member this year.
“I learn a lot at my school, and I like being able to take that and share it,” Clemenhagen said. Noting the number of leaders the camp has, the staff
member explained that every camper is given a wealth of information to draw from, getting more in the process than any one leader knows on their own.
Outside of the camp environment Clemenhagen shared that he now works largely on the technical side of theatres doing stage managing, or running lights and sound for different shows.
“This place really started me off,” he said. “It’s really changed my life a lot.”
Samantha Sanabria, at camp for the first time this year, said that she is having a great time of it.
“I just came here this week and I have met a lot of good friends,” said Sanabria, a resident of New Jersey who visits the area each summer to see her grandmother. “It is an awesome way to learn new things.”
The young American said that she signed up for the camp based on the regular trips she and her grandmother make to the summer theatre every time she is up for a visit.
“We come here, like, every three weeks to see shows,” Sanabria shared.
Looking back over the last five years, Baldwin said that the experience has had the chance to get past some pitfalls and is running very smoothly as a camp now. Beyond the theatre aspect, he pointed out that the social environment of the camp is one of strong support and encouragement with only the occasional unintentional drama.
“It’s very team oriented,” the director said, highlighting the camp’s objective of promoting personal development through drama.
This afternoon’s show, which will feature performances from the musical “Guys and Dolls” as well as works inspired by the British show Blackadder, will begin at 3pm. Baldwin estimates the performance will last no less than an hour but stressed that the campers are looking for as big an audience as possible.
“We plan to return next summer with even more adventures,“he said.