As the summer comes to an end, and the city starts to repopulate with children and college students, I am reminded of the summers of my youth. I spent them at an overnight camp in the North Woods of Wisconsin. The summers were a delight; filled with nature, arts and crafts, folk songs, sunshine, epic sporting matches and musical theater! Think Allan Sherman’s Camp Granada, with much better insurance plans.

Camp was mostly a wonderful experience that played a very large part in shaping who I am today, though my parents did get some “Hello Muddah” type letters. I often find myself being drawn to other “camp” people who have shared this common experience. So when I discovered that many of my favorite songwriters would have been considered “camp folk,” I was elated!   

Legends like Arthur Schwartz, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, Larry Hart, Leonard Bernstein, Adolph Green, Charles Strouse and Neil Dimond all spent summers away.

Sending boys to camp was an attempt to save them from the summer heat of the cities and from the moral decline they would face with unstructured summers. Yet, summer camps proved to be much more for these future movers and shakers of the music world. Many lifelong friendships were formed, an interest in entertainment was sparked, and skills were developed that would affect campers for the remainder of their lives. 

John Kander went to Camp Nebagamon in northwestern Wisconsin and was asked to write the music for the camp musicals. In the PBS special “Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy,” Kander states that this opportunity at camp probably changed his life. Jerry Herman’s parents owned a camp called Stissing Lake, in Pine Plains, New York. After many years of resisting his father’s wishes to become a gym teacher and pursue a career that would allow Jerry to eventually take over the camp, he became the camp’s Musical Theater Director. At Stissing Lake, he wrote parodies of popular songs, as well as original works that were performed in camp reviews. For these two songwriters and many more, camp provided a creative outlet to explore their talents and gain the confidence to pursue their future careers. Camps such as Weingart, Wigwam, Paradox, Onota, and Brant Lake became the breeding grounds for the great songwriters of the 20th century. Come back next few weeks for the remarkable stories from these camps.