Summer Theater Camp Fills a Need, Gives Local Kids a Chance to Shine

When the curtain went up on the Gunnison Valley Theater Festival’s fourth-annual summer theater camp at Western Colorado University this summer, director Heather Hughes hoped her program was filling a need in the community.

The Gunnison schools were undergoing a renovation, which meant the typical summer programs, called Summer Experience, would need to be canceled for the year.

“It was definitely the biggest group yet,” said Hughes, who has been running summer theater programs in various places since she graduated from Western in the late 90s. “I even hired three of our current theater students to work with me this summer.”

In total, 42 students participated in theater camp this summer: 18 in elementary, 15 in middle school, and nine in high school. Elementary students kicked off the season with a one-week camp in early June, working nine-to-three every day to draft an all-original musical before performing it for friends and family on Friday night.

The middle school camp had taken a similar course in previous years, until there was a request for a change. “Last summer, I got a letter proposing that [middle school] camp be two weeks,” she said, “because they love it so much.”

The high school camp, in the second week of July, attracted more participants than ever before. While part of the surge in enrollment might be due to the absence of Summer Experience, Hughes thinks the camp is catching on in its own right. Even before this summer, the camp had grown every year.

For Hughes, the theater is a sacred place where people are allowed to be themselves, in whatever form that takes. Difference is celebrated there, in ways it often isn’t in school. Middle school, in particular, is a hard time for students to feel good about themselves, and she believes the values imbued in the theater can help them navigate a difficult time.

At the end of each day of camp, she gathers her students in a ‘Gratitude Circle’, where everyone gives a compliment to the person to their right, in turn, and then gives a compliment to the person on their left. At first, it’s a little awkward. But it doesn’t take long for everyone to warm up to the idea of positive feedback. And it’s that sense of belonging that Hughes hopes campers carry with them long after the lights go down.

“My whole thing with kids is that it’s a place where everyone feels respected, empowered, and encouraged. I hope they get the green light to walk into the space truthfully and honestly and exactly and authentically as themselves. That they not only feel welcome as themselves but are encouraged to be themselves,” she said. “If they do that, we really get to know one another, and we can make great things together because all the scary stuff is gone.”