Rapkin doesn't condescend to his subjects, but he wisely doesn't take the place too seriously - either in its hilariously scary 70s incarnation or its shiny, expensive modern heyday. Like New York before it was gentrified, Stagedoor Manor was less a rich person's playground and more, well, screwed up. Really, the most interesting part of the book is the history. Each page has a little treat in it for regular US Magazine readers: Bijou Phillips got kicked out of Stagedoor Manor? One of Demi Moore's kids got waitlisted? And it's a place where, increasingly and bittersweetly, ambitious kids go to find an agent and become a star.īy profiling three kids in their final summer at camp, Rapkin finds a narrative thread to lead the story along, but you'll care less about his three protagonists than you will about the gossip he dishes.
It's a place where loving Stephen Sondheim makes you the proverbial Prom Queen rather than the well, geek. It's a fascinating setting for theater geeks across the country to put on a show with other theater geeks. That's a kind of detail you can't even make up.Īnd fortunately for readers, Rapkin doesn't make up his details. That, folks, is Carl Bernstein's son - and Richard Nixon's granddaughter. In one particularly dishy aside, a staffer recalls Jacob Bernstein and Jennie Eisenhower performing in the same show one summer. There, they hone their craft not by studying, but by doing: by actually acting out plays.Īnd that's not all: Stagedoor is apparently just as much a playground for the children of the rich and famous these days as it for aspiring thespians. The "premier summer theater camp for children and teenagers," Stagedoor Manor is the subject of GQ editor Mickey Rapkin's new book, Theater Geek.Īn expensive camp in the Catskills, Stagedoor Manor has attracted a growing rash of celebs-in-training, from Natalie Portman to Robert Downey Jr., Zach Braff to Mandy Moore, and Jon Cryer to Bryce Dallas Howard. If you want to get in the business side of the film industry, go to Wesleyan.Īnd if you want to become an actor, it turns out, it's practically compulsory to put in a few summers at Stagedoor Manor. If you want to be president, history tells us you need to get to an Ivy League college. Even if they're not strictly closed to outsiders, potential members must at least have be aware of their existences (and be able to afford tuition) to work their ways in. Today: Mickey Rapkin's Theater Geek.įor a supposed meritocracy, America is filled with all sorts of secret societies. Have a suggestion for us? Leave it in the comment section. All week, Jackalope Ranch contributors will review candidates for your nightstand. Already whipped through your summer reading materials? No worries.
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