Buildings and Property

Drama–1975

Published on 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.”

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Drama–1974

Published on by Kathy Baker

DRAMA REPORT 1974—Mary Toburen, Director and Val Unger, assistantimage2-copy,

“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.

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Drama-1973

Published on by Kathy Baker

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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.

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Drama-1972

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

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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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You Can Never Have Enough—-

Published on by Kathy Baker

fullsizerender-20Many campers could trace their present day love for all things arts and crafts to their days at Maqua, including Maggie Young, who felt so fortunate to have the exposure during the sixties and seventies. Carol Requadt (1945) could still remember the cedar smell of the craft hut where she loved working with her hands.

Mary Hewes (1946) and MaryJane Keschman (1944-54) loved the traditions at camp, including the arts and crafts. “I remember making Gimp bracelets with four strands of plastic woven together and a leather lanyard that I gave to my brother. We also sanded wooden bowls until they were smooth, “ said Mary. For MaryJane, it was the wooden plate with her mother’s initials and the same Gimp bracelets that were her favorites.

“In the arts and crafts hut, there were work benches and tables in picnic table style”, said Caryl Sue Abendroth, who loved that they could work on their leather keychains, basket weaving or lanyards in the fifties, even on rainy days.

Lanterns and tile ashtrays were the craft of choice for Helen Thompson in 1968. A paperweight with a four- leaf clover embedded inside, formed with a regular three leaf and a single one added, pleased Bev Lemanski’s father in 1945. For Beverly Schlatter, who loved the craft hut in the forties, it did not matter what she brought home to her parents, she just liked working with flowers, stones, glue and scissors.

The little yellow painted bowl, with I LOVE YOU inscribed on it, is still in the possession of Maureen Moore’s mother from the sixties, as well as Patsy Walsh’s little leather woven purse in the shape of a triangle from 1938!

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Copper Enameling and Dippity Glass Flowers

Published on by Kathy Baker

EPSON003_1024 13“I remember arts and crafts, weaving the unfinished lanyards that we were making for our girl crushes, or sitting on the dock dipping the straw into the lake to wet the pieces down to make baskets that probably never got made,” said Cara Prieskorn (1966-71). There were also bracelets made from what appeared to be leather shoelaces that we tied in knots and wore on our wrists until they rotted off. But, I did make a copper enamel poodle pin for my Mom that was light blue with a dark eye and she still wears it. I just told her recently, OK Mom, you can stop wearing that pin now and she told me she likes to wear it!”

A kiln sat safely in a corner of the craft hut for copper enameling, but only staff were allowed to use it. Leslie Ciesielski and Kathy Allen were craft directors in 1970 and they handled about 12-15 students each hour. That year, along with copper enameling, beaded necklaces, Zodiac signs in plaster and Dippity glass flowers were popular.

“The Dippity Glass Flowers were simple, but not practical for a crafts class,” their activity report stated. “Many times, we had to dispose of half-full jars because they had thickened so rapidly.”

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