This summer camp ends not with a campfire song but a full-on performance.
The Port Angeles YMCA Drama Camp camps its seventh year with a pair of free performances of “Aesop’s Foibles,” written by Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus, at 2 p.m. Friday, July 31, and 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1.
Both performances are at the Port Angeles High School auditorium, 304 E. Park Ave.
The drama camp includes improvisational drama games, acting exercises and play rehearsal, and ends its season with the play production. “Aesop’s Foibles” is a contemporary comedy spoof of the classic,” Aesop’s Fables.”
Kelly Lovall, Port Angeles High School drama coach, teaches the camp and directs the play.
“This play still retains the famous moral lessons found in the original Aesop’s fables, but it is filled with characters who try to come to terms with whether they only exist in Aesop’s mind,” Lovall said. “The play begins as young Aesop explains his problem of continually hearing voices in his head. These characters come to life as characters onstage that only Aesop and the audience can see and hear.”
Those characters include the indignant Fox; the unscrupulous Hare; the ambitious Tortoise; The Boy Who, prideful of his quick wit, Cried Wolf; the zen-like Grasshopper; the Aunt (his mother’s sister); the humiliated Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing and more.
There are 25 actors involved in the 50-minute production. Actors include 15-year-olds Rose Alexander, Charles Krause and Alex Anderson, 14-year-olds Madelynne Jones and Briana Yacklin, 13-year-olds Amelie Atwater, Alisyn Boyd, Polly Price, Emily Sirguy, Maizie Tucker, Myra Walker and Sammy Weinert, 12-year-old Jordon Trautwein, 11-year-olds Liam Getzin, Julian Jones, Talia Anderson and Sophie Orth, 10-year-old Lauryn Chapman and 8-year-old Trae Hanan.
Six past and current members of the Port Angeles High School Thespian Society are volunteering and also have parts in this play.
“Through their mentorship, they are an instrumental force in the success of this camp,” Lovall said. “They bring with them knowledge and acting skills that they have developed from past experience and they use these skills to help support and guide the campers.”
Many YMCA drama campers return in following years and look forward to working with the high school drama members, Lovall said. Some Thespian Society members have gone on to study theater arts in college and others intend to make it their course of study when they graduate high school, including Lucy Bert, Zoe Bozich, Ashia Lawrence, Grace Sanwald, Katie Bowes, Emma Szczepczynski, Kristin Kirkman and Alley Mon Wai.
