Camp: What is it and Its History

Is Head over Heels Camp?

Great question, but also a complicated question. First we have to define camp:

From this we learn a great deal about what camp is but also how nebulous and difficult to define it is. Simply put it is something that is too much, fake but very real, planned but not planned at all, serious while also being deeply trivial. Clear as mud? If you want to find out more about camp you can read Susan Sontag's essay (which really is highly readable and fun) here. But does all of this remind you of something? maybe something on the first page of the script?

Does this sound like camp to you? But by saying it is camp and thinking about it as camp are we eliminating it from the category of camp? These are all questions I still have and will be thinking about during the rehearsal process. If you want to sharpen your skills of identifying camp check out this poll where you can decide if various looks from the 2019 NMET Gala (which theme was camp) are actually camp. Maybe after this you will be able to look camp right in the eye too.