{"id":17461,"date":"2020-01-28T16:42:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=17461"},"modified":"2020-01-28T16:42:15","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:42:15","slug":"into-the-woods-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/into-the-woods-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Into the Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 326px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23cacaca&amp;d=fm19_flip_book&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=50&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Be amazed by who got their start among the whispering pines of<br \/>\nMaine\u2019s Summer Camps.<\/h2>\n<p>February\/March 2019<\/p>\n<p><em>By Colin W. Sargent<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Did the whole world grow up going to camp here? Who\u2019d ever have guessed that the lake, stars, and crickets at <strong>Camp Androscoggin<\/strong> would inspire young <strong>Stephen Sondheim<\/strong> to write <em>Into the Woods<\/em>? For a touch of Camelot, think of <strong>JFK Jr.<\/strong>, who discovered himself when he went to <strong>Outward Bound<\/strong> in 1977. We\u2019re sure your camp was cool, but did it have a real prince at it? <strong>Thai Prince Mom Tri Devakul<\/strong> went to <strong>Camp Chewonki<\/strong> in Wiscasset in 1954\u2014on his way to becoming a world-class architect.<\/p>\n<h5>Bacall Ya later<\/h5>\n<p>We\u2019re just getting warmed up. Listen to the rapture of former camper<strong> Lauren Bacall<\/strong> as she remembers her childhood at <strong>Highland Nature Camp<\/strong> in Naples, on Sebago Lake. Now called <strong>Mataponi<\/strong>, this camp still exists! \u201cI loved to swim,\u201d she says in her autobiography <em>By Myself and Then Some<\/em>. \u201cThere was a rule that in order to swim from the dock out to the raft, one had to pass a test. I can see the test morning now. A group of small girls waiting their turns. I didn\u2019t know how I was going to do it, but after two years of swimming near the dock I was ready to move on. The girl before me was taking her test. She had a lovely stroke, and there was no question that she would pass. I watched her very carefully to see when she breathed\u2014how she turned her head\u2014kicked her feet. I was next. I went down the ladder and proceeded to do exactly what she had done. Miraculously, it worked\u2014I had won and it was the raft from then on. One step away from childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the great indoors, \u201cthere were weekly dramatic programs\u2014sometimes plays, sometimes musical recitals, dances. I clearly remember doing a scarf dance my last year at Highland Nature. I felt as though I were really performing\u2014I was so grown-up. Had the stage all to myself. I really felt good\u2014the music was romantic, and I loved to dance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I was in plays\u2014in one I pulled my long hair back in a bun to look like Ann Harding. There were campfires\u2014roasting marshmallows\u2014overnight canoe trips\u2014sleeping under the stars\u2014skinny-dips before breakfast in the cold, clean lake. I suppose those years were as close to carefree as I had known or ever would again.\u201d<\/p>\n<h5>Spock Shock<\/h5>\n<p>Star Trek\u2019s <strong>Leonard Nimoy<\/strong> steeled his icy reserve by having to jump into the frigid waters of Long Pond in Parsonsfield at <strong>West End House Camp<\/strong>. Years later, Red Sox guru <strong>Theo Epstein<\/strong> would test the same waters.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019d think that <strong>J.D. Salinger<\/strong> would be hard to get to know at summer camp. Nothing of the kind! Nobody can get away with being a recluse at <strong>Camp Wigwam<\/strong>, on Bear Pond in Waterford. We all know him as the author of <em>The Catcher in the Rye<\/em> and <em>Franny and Zoey<\/em>, but <em>Hapworth 16<\/em> is an awesome rant by the narrator Seymour Glass, just seven years old, written from his summer camp in you-know-where.<\/p>\n<h5>In-Tents Experiences<\/h5>\n<p>On the silver screen <strong>Lindsay Lohan<\/strong> played both of the twins who stayed at Camp Walden in <em>The Parent Trap<\/em>. Maine\u2014fountain of deception and switched identities! Thank heaven for little girls. No, that\u2019s a different Maine camper, <strong>Alan Jay Lerner<\/strong> (<em>Gigi<\/em>). Do you think \u201cIf Ever I Would Leave You\u201d started writing itself as a result of a broken Maine camp romance?<\/p>\n<p>The reason Charlotte in <em>Sex and the City<\/em> went to summer camp in Maine is entirely due to executive producer <strong>Jenny Bicks<\/strong>, who grew up spending summers in <strong>Castine<\/strong>. \u201cWe landed in Castine when I was around two. My aunt\u2019s mother had a house on the harbor, and we\u2019ve been there ever since. I got to spend every summer there, which was magical. I was the city kid\u2013grew up in Manhattan\u2013who got a chance to spend three months in this magical town. I had all my formative experiences there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ditto for <strong>Claire Danes<\/strong>, <strong>Si Newhouse<\/strong>, <strong>Lena Dunham<\/strong>, and <strong>Ben Stiller<\/strong>, who has fond memories of Freedom\u2019s <strong>Hidden Valley Camp<\/strong>. He tells <em>W Magazine<\/em>, it\u2019s there he had his first kiss. \u201cIt was under a tree. I remember thinking it was very romantic and cool and just like charged, which most first kisses I would imagine are. I was at camp, and I was kind of homesick. And I actually remember my father had come up to the camp because I was saying I wanted to go. And then I met the girl, and then I was like, \u2018Dad, get out of here. Get out of here.\u2019\u201d There\u2019s something about Maine.<\/p>\n<p>Thoughtful <strong>W. E. B. DuBois<\/strong> spent summers up here too; at the <strong>Cambridge Gun and Rod Club<\/strong> on the shores of Lake Cobbosseecontee [see \u201cThe W.E.B. DuBois Files,\u201d Summerguide 2001 at portlandmonthly.com].<\/p>\n<h5>Work, Help, Love<\/h5>\n<p><strong>Maggie Rogers<\/strong> was so influenced by her summer camp experience here that she used her old camp, <strong>Wohelo<\/strong>, as the setting for the music video of her song \u201cDog Years.\u201d Visit YouTube to see the video shot on site, or see her IRL at the State Theatre, March 23.<\/p>\n<h5>See you next year<\/h5>\n<p>It\u2019s wonderful waking up in the place of someone else\u2019s childhood dreams. On the other hand, exoticizing anything or anybody is the first step toward dismissing them. Want a reality check? More than a few Native Americans grew up way ahead of this trend. We\u2019re not just sylvan lakes and pine trees baby. News flash to wistful former campers: Maine\u2019s grown up, too. But still: tell us about your celebrity campers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Be amazed by who got their start among the whispering pines of Maine\u2019s Summer Camps. February\/March 2019 By Colin W. Sargent Did the whole world grow up going to camp here? Who\u2019d ever have guessed that the lake, stars, and crickets at Camp Androscoggin would inspire young Stephen Sondheim to write Into the Woods? For [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17463,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17461\/revisions\/17463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}