Theater geek

By Mickey Rapkin

Subjects: Acting, Study and teaching, Stagedoor Manor (Loch Sheldrake, N.Y.), Actors, Teenage actors

Description: Before there was Glee or American Idol, there was Stagedoor Manor, a theater camp in the Catskills where big-time Hollywood casting directors came to find the next generation of stars. It s where Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Braff, Mandy Moore, Lea Michele, and many others got their start as kids. At age thirty-one, Mickey Rapkin, a senior editor at GQ and self-proclaimed theater geek, was lucky enough to go, too, when he followed three determined teen actors through the rivalries, heartbreak, and triumphs of a summer at Stagedoor Manor.