Must See: Camp Wanatachi

Last April the Off Broadway Alliance held a seminar entitled, "New Directions for Gay Theatre." Actors and creative team members from The Temperamentals, Yank!, and The Kid were on the panel. There were probably five women in the full Snapple Theater. During the Q&A portion one of the women asked, "Where are the lesbian plays?" And of course, the men answered something about the lack of material from playwrights. I'm sure I wasn't the only woman dissatisfied with that answer.

This weekend I saw Camp Wanatachi at La Mama Experimental Theater Club in the East Village. The story is about girls at a Christian summer camp. One of the girls is struggling with having a crush on one of the other girls. The characters are only fourteen years old and played (I think) by actual teenagers.

We wanted lesbian storylines in theatre, but it is the fact that these girls are so young that makes this show feel revolutionary. Even on television we are seeing more high school gay boy characters (Kurt on Glee, Justin on Ugly Betty), but we see lesbians as more college aged, surely for the straight male tv audiences.

The quality of this production was exceptional. The lead actresses, Marissa O'Donnell and Krystina Alabado, had huge, beautiful voices, fit for a Broadway stage. I marveled at how rarely in small downtown theaters we see hear excellent voices in musicals, but both of these young women have extensive resumes (O'Donnell appeared on Broadway in Shrek and Alabado was in the national tour of Spring Awakening). The composer and lyricist, Natalie Elizabeth Weiss, provided rocking songs and this production has full orchestration. For a small production, the show was very well rounded.

Camp Wanatachi had its funny jokes about Christian extremists, but it was really a coming of age story. Anyone who has had a summer romance will appreciate it, but lesbians who have memories of being at all girls summer camps will find it especially nostalgic. To show young lesbians represented in this musical gives a stage presence to a whole demographic that has been neglected. I can only hope that we see a further incarnation of Camp Wanatachi in the future, hopefully in a bigger venue with a longer run. In the meantime, get to La Mama by Sunday, February 6.