What is it about Camp Ramah?

Specifically, what is it about Camp Ramah’s theater program? A bunch of Jewish teens performing simplified Hebrew translations of classic musicals can apparently lead to the Great White Way. And this isn’t about a lone example— there is soon to be three different Camp Ramah alumni on Broadway at the same time— all of them in leading roles.

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Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

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In actual camp programming, the only vestiges of real Hebrew education were our daily proyekt class, run by the extremely attractive Israeli soldiers familiar to anyone who has attended Jewish camp in the United States. Proyekt really translates to “skip class and avoid eye contact with staff members.” So, the only real Hebrew content of the summer was in the plays that every age group put on. Highlights of my own camp performances include Rocky Horror Picture Show, She’s All That, and The Prince of Egypt, staged with varying degrees of coherence and faithfulness to the original source. In my last summer as a camper, we put on Tommy, which makes surprisingly frequent appearances in the camp repertoire thanks to a truly impressive translation. Israeli theater producers: take note.

I spent one summer as a camp counselor. That year, thanks to our Jewish day school education, my friend Ilana and I were asked to write the script for the play my campers would perform—101 Dalmations. I hope that when I die, I am primarily remembered for my Hebrew version of Britney Spears’  “Toxic,” about Cruella DeVille.

For campers, play performances were among the grand events of the summer. One night, the summer before seventh grade, as I squeezed onto the floor of an unventilated wooden barn directly behind a boy a foot taller than me, I was ready for a magical performance of The Wizard of Oz. I had no idea I was about to experience the most meaningful Hebrew educational moment in my 10 years at camp.

I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz far more times than is healthy, and I spoke Hebrew just about as well as anybody at camp. So, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the plot. The first act went exactly as I expected. But when Dorothy and Co. finally reached Oz, events took an unexpected twist.

During the Scarecrow’s big moment with the Wizard, the crowd suddenly went wild—or at least the part of the crowd who knew Hebrew. I did not get the joke. I turned to my counselor, bewildered, who generously explained that instead of saying, “I wish for a brain,” the brilliant 14-year-old performer had turned to the Wizard of Oz and said ten li rosh—“give me head”.

So, that emphasis on the Hebrew language paid off after all, as I got a handy lesson in describing the act of fellatio in the holy tongue. Thanks, Camp.

Shifra M. Goldenberg is an arts administrator and freelance web designer.

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It was my final summer (a little late in the game, frankly, to start thinking about Jesus—a delay likely rooted in my Semitically-oriented Long Island upbringing or general ninth grade disregard for things not directly impacting me or my BFFs), which meant our play was performed during visiting day, to the presumed delight of parents who had shlepped up to the Adirondacks to endure a day—or two, depending on how prolific you were—of poorly navigated sailing jaunts, tennis drills, and an inevitable ceramics class. An odd choice of musical, perhaps, for a camp (mostly) full of Jewish girls, but in those days there was no High School Musical to fall back on.

I auditioned because I thought it would be fun for my parents to watch me on stage. They had never made any indication to suggest that was the case, but theatrically ahead I forged.

I should make it very clear that I have a less-than-stellar singing voice, a generally uncomfortable stage presence, and very little idea of what to do with extremities like arms and hands in public spaces.

Regardless, I was cast as Priest Three, a partially-named character with many more lines than Priests One and Two. I know this because the piano player noted the discrepancy during one of our priest-only rehearsals.

At our all-girls camp, a single french braid, tucked into a pageboy cap or maybe a cowboy hat, signified that a character was male. I had the (debatably) good fortune of being able to tuck my french braid into the conical black construction paper hat my character wore, which while not as stately as Caiphus’ certainly did the trick.

As my family likes to retell it, my lines mainly consisted of “Yes he did I saw him too,” sung varyingly in an awkwardly deep voice or an unsustainably high pitched lilt. I’m pretty sure I had other lines, though I am finally able to admit that most of them probably sounded a lot like that one. If I’ve learned anything from The Voice—other than that I would do terribly on The Voice—it’s that sometimes you just need to be true to yourself as an artist. Or be less pitchy.

I hadn’t considered the impact my theatrical debut (and the wretched VHS tape documenting it) had on my intellectual development until I enrolled in a Classical Judaism course in college. When we got to the part about the rabble rousing and the carpenter king, I realized somewhat sheepishly that the bulk of my understanding of Jesus could be hummed, sung, or recited—either way it all definitely rhymed.

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