Scenes from Summer Camp

Summer camp is awesome… until it rains. What is there to do when you’re stuck inside? Trade gibbets for your Crocs? Debate Taylor Swift? Solve Climate Change? Follow six young campers and their counselors as they navigate an afternoon in their cabin. This play is funny, honest, and delightful in its simplicity. A great choice for scene study in class or to perform at a summer camp. Characters can be played students in elementary through high school.

About the Author…

Ella Surkis Gillespie is from Brooklyn, NY, and is majoring in History and Dramatic Literature at NYU. She wrote this play after working as a camp counselor and realized just what a strange place summer camp is.

Excerpt from the play:

CHARACTERS

CECELIA (CC)
BETH
BROOKLYN
VIOLET
MAYA
JAYDEN
COUNSELOR (1)
COUNSELOR (2)
*Characters can be played by actors of any age.

SCENE 1

Campers enter the cabin energetically. VIOLET and MAYA go to their bunks. VIOLET gets under the covers and pulls out a book. MAYA starts sorting through her many belongings. BETH, CC, BROOKLYN, and JAYDEN run to BROOKLYN’s bunk, huddled together they are engaged in conversation, occasionally peals of laughter or whisper/shouted words can be heard coming from their group. At a much more subdued pace, the counselors enter the cabin.

COUNSELOR 1
Let’s try to use this extra time to rest.

Campers speak-overlapping, rapidly.

CC
What if we aren’t tired?

BETH
I am tired, I only got five minutes of sleep last night.

CC
Cabin Two gets to be outside.

BROOKLYN
It isn’t fair.

CC
I didn’t sleep at all last night either.

COUNSELOR 2
There was a storm last night. It is not forecast to storm again so it will be easier to get sleep tonight.

JAYDEN
I bet CC couldn’t sleep because Cabin Two was so loud last night.

BROOKLYN
They literally screamed the whole night.

CC
And they still get to go outside—and we don’t. That isn’t fair.

MAYA
Why can’t we go outside? I want to play tetherball.

JAYDEN
It’s because they are older. Older kids get to stay outside longer. Everyone knows that.

COUNSELOR 1
We are on thunder watch. No one is allowed to go outside, not even Cabin Two.

Counselors retire to their bunks, trying to get some rest. Rain begins, the thin walls of the ‘cabin’ mean the rain is almost claustrophobically loud.

BETH
But I don’t need to sleep!

MAYA
Can we play hide and seek?

JAYDEN
Ugh, be quiet Maya!

BETH
Can we play with your slime Brooklyn?

BROOKLYN
No, it’s my slime and last time I let you guys play with it, you got it dirty.

BETH
But I always let everyone play with my slime.

MAYA
You’ve never let me play with your slime?

CC
You have to share Brooklyn, that’s what the counselors said.

VIOLET
Can everyone please be QUIET?

BROOKLYN
No, we’re trapped inside, and we’re bored.

VIOLET
UGHHH!

JAYDEN
C’mon, let’s trade gibbets.

BETH
Can someone bring me my Crocs?

CC
I will!

BROOKLYN
I already traded away all my good gibbets.

MAYA
I can trade you guys my gibbets!

JAYDEN
No, you always want trade-backs. Which isn’t fair.

MAYA
Please can I trade with you?

BETH
Only if you trade your fluffy gibbets.

MAYA
Those are my favorite gibbets! And I only wanted a trade-back because she said her gibbet was real but then Lilah told me it wasn’t.

JAYDEN
They.

MAYA
Sorry.

CC
Just give us your fluffy gibbets, and then you can trade with us.

MAYA
Ok. But… what will you give me in return?

BETH
The apple?

MAYA
But that isn’t even a real gibbet…

BETH
Well, it’s the only one I want to trade.

BROOKLYN
Anyone want my T.S. gibbet? My older sister got it for me and it’s really rare.

JAYDEN
My brother says Taylor Swift is a bad person.

BROOKLYN
No, she’s not! She’s done loads of good things and / she interacts with her fans more than any other singer!!!

BETH
Do you listen to everything your brother says?

MAYA
I got the gibbet out. Who do I give it to?

BETH
Me.
MAYA hands BETH the Fluffy Gibbet

CC
That isn’t fair!

BETH
Yes, it is, I told Maya I would let her trade with us if she gave it to me. So, it’s mine.

CC
But yesterday I told everyone I wanted that fluffy Gibbet, remember, Jayden?

JAYDEN
Nope.

MAYA
I want that T. S. gibbet! I’ll trade it for… [MAYA pauses, considering her options]

JAYDEN
My brother said Taylor Swift is stupid because she causes climate change.

BETH
One person can’t just “cause climate change.” You should trade her the flower gibbet.

BROOKLYN
I don’t want the flower, it isn’t real.

JAYDEN
But my brother says she uses a private jet which is really bad for climate change.

CC
No, it’s not. [clearly lying] My family has a private jet, and they help climate change.

BETH
Your family does not have a private jet.