GAY CAMP Begins Performances at Duplex Cabaret Tonight

The script - penned by co-authors Philip Mutz and Susan-Kate Heaney - has been updated since its previous run with newer, bigger laughs, and even more up-to-the minute punchlines. Phillip Fazio (Arizona premiere of Grey Gardens, Last Five Years, and August: Osage County) returns once again to direct this latest update.

Gay Camp is a quick-change farce that follows the stories of several young campers at a gay reform camp. They have been sent away by their parents to be 'fixed'. Instead, they learn how to love - themselves and one another.

Combining fast-paced writing, wildly imaginative direction, audience interaction, and razor-sharp comedic performances by three actors playing more than a dozen zany characters, Gay Camp is fast, funny, and not pulling its punches as it takes on anti-gay sentiment in America.

Start with a deliciously evil counselor facing off against a loud-and-proud young camper, throw in a few electrified fences, disco balls, Cher ballads, gay Twister, Michele Bachmann surprises, slow-motion fantasies, Straight vs. Gay lessons, whips, handcuffs, flannel, and more innuendos than you can shake a dildo at, and you've got Gay Camp.

Re-joining in the fun will be composer/musician Bradford Proctor (Bunked: The Musical), serving as Gay Camp's onstage accompanist and unassuming narrator.

Gay Camp was initially part of the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival and ran from August 11 - August 22 at the HERE Mainstage Theatre in SoHo.

Following its initial sold-out run, Gay Camp received the Overall Excellence Award from FringeNYC for "Best Ensemble 2012", and was selected as one of 19 shows (out of the 187 Fringe shows) to receive an extension as part of Fringe's Encore Series (subsequently playing at the Players' Theatre).

Gay Camp played scattered dates at the Duplex from August 17 - December 20, 2013, with cast members Philip Mutz, Ken Urso, and Christian Mansfield reprising their roles.

Gay Camp also served as the inspiration for this past June's My Big Gay 'Gay Camp' Talent Show, a one-night-only comedy cabaret, that played NYC's Laurie Beechman Theatre and featured Broadway's Nadia Quinn (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Mariand Torres (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812), and the entire Gay Camp cast. Additionally, Gay Camp received its West Coast debut on August 3, 2013, at the Interplayers' Theatre in Spokane, Washington.

Featured in this past September's OUT Magazine, Gay Camp has been playing to sold-out houses, and receiving rave reviews since its inception.

Photo by Nick Catania