Today was all about the music — and let me just say right now that we have an amazingly varied and stunningly talented crop of campers this session. I mean, we always have a lot of talent in the room, but in my short tenure as Camp Director I have never seen so many instruments in the PEG dorm! These kids play everything – aside from the ubiquitous acoustic guitars (what’s summer camp without an acoustic guitar or seven?) and the usual handful of ukeleles, this session we also have five (yes, FIVE) violins, a saxophone, a trombone, a clarinet, a flute, several pianists (though none of them are in possession of the majestic kitty keyboard Elias Cross brought with him last session — each key “meows” its note when played), some maracas, I think I saw a tambourine at some point, panpipes and several different recorders. Oh, and CAROLINE RAYMOND with her upright bass:

IT'S BIGGER THAN SHE IS

So many violins.

You can bet your bottom buck that we’ll be making use of all of these musical talents in each of the shows as well as in our mid-session Showcase (which is on Saturday, July 30). Today we started working on an all-camp song, which will close the Showcase performance and make a reappearance to open the Final Performance Festival on Sunday, August 6. We’ve got a whole strings section, not to mention a clarinet-flute-saxophone-trombone quartet. It’s gonna be magic!

The impact of her vocal work on the campers’ confidence and subsequent performances always blows me away.

The cast of LEAR with voice coach Allison Glenzer.

Jessica and Other Daniel observing Voice class

Blurry shot of Chris Johnston's late night music workshop.

In addition to rehearsing music for the Showcase, campers had a lot of one-on-one time with their heroes today: they split into casts for Voice class with Alli Glenzer, which meant each camper was able to get more individual attention in their vocal work, and then we all joined back together for a music workshop with another ASC veteran actor (and extraordinary musician) Chris Johnston.