Hey, Campers!
With countless numbers of kids going to summer camp for more than a hundred years, there are literally millions of adults who were summer campers when they we
re children. It’s not surprising to discover then, that lots of former campers went on to become celebrities that we all know and love today.
I’ve told you about Zach Braff and Natalie Portman, alumni of the wonderful Stage Door Manor Camp. You can check out a Blog post about Zach Braff right right—and one about Natalie Portman right here. And for today’s post, we’ll learn of another Stage Door Manor alum who attended around the same time: Mandy Moore.
Sited in a former resort in the Catskills Borscht Belt in Loch Sheldrake, New York, Stage Door Manor provides awesome venues for its campers to get the experience of being on the stage, in the spotlight. Spending three weeks of her summer among Stage Door Manor’s awesome theatre spaces like the Carousel, the Cabaret, the Forum, the Merman, and the outdoor Garden Theatre, Mandy was inspired at a young age to seek out a career in acting.
The granddaughter of Eileen Friedman, a professional ballerina from London, Mandy looked up to her grandmother as a strong source of inspiration to follow her dreams of stardom. “My parents thought it was just a phase I’d grow out of, but I stuck to it and begged them for acting lessons, for voice lessons,” Mandy is quoted to have said.
She didn’t just give her full effort to her lessons, but she immediately went to plugging herself and before long she was starring in a number of productions around town and singing the National Anthem at local sporting events.
When she was 13, she started writing her own music and she was overheard performing by a FedEx delivery employee who had a friend at a record company. The delivery man took a copy of Mandy’s unfinished demo to send to his friend and before she knew it, Mandy was signing a record label.
After launching a music career, Mandy entered into her acting career as well, bringing to the screen great characters from memorable movies like the ‘Princess Diaries’ and ‘A Walk to Remember’, and doing fun voicework for movies like the ‘Dr. Dolittle’ sequel, the ‘Brother Bear’ sequel, as well as the Disney hit, ‘Tangled’.
More recently, she starred in the NBC family comedy-drama television series, ‘This Is Us’ as Rebecca Pearson, the mother of the family. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in 2016. Staying dedicated to her passion sure has paid off for Mandy. Her summer camp experience surely helped ignite the flames. If Stage Door Manor sounds like the camp for your kid, be sure to check it out sometime and, as always, thanks for reading!
- John