1. CAMP MANNUPPIA: AN ALT MASC COMEDY is a recent play you’ve submitted to The Baltimore Playwrights Festival. What is it about?
Camp Mannuppia is a slapstick comedy set in 2003(ish) at a summer camp that allegedly teaches teenage boys how to be more masculine. In reality, the camp is run by a drag queen and her partner, who let the campers be themselves for one week each year. This year, however, two new campers show up who actually want to learn to be more macho, and that throws everything into chaos. The story is told as an end-of-camp skit for the characters’ parents and friends, so the whole thing plays out as a play within a play.
2. Why was it important for you to write CAMP MANNUPPIA? What do you hope the audience takes away from it?
The script came out of a lot of experiences I had growing up as a (closeted) gay man and being hyperaware at all times of whether anything I was doing could be read as “too feminine” and therefore open to mockery or scorn. And, as an adult, having conversations with other gay men who had similar experiences—including within the queer community itself—of having any hint of femininity reading as weakness or aberration. Then, because life is never black and white, I got to know several trans and non-binary folx who were actively exploring their more masculine identities in a healthy and positive way, and this further complicated my views on masculinity. I knew I wanted to try to represent these different perspectives and experiences, and, at the time, books and movies like Boy Erased and The Miseducation of Cameron Post were movingly portraying the agonizing experience of conversion therapy. Recognizing the inherent absurdity of gender roles/stereotypes, I decided to go in the opposite direction and explore some of these same themes through comedy.
My favorite sound in the world is a gaggle of queer people laughing together in recognition. So, I hope that audiences enjoy seeing a bit of themselves in these characters and can get a bit of levity from it. In a perfect world, someone in the crowd who sees gender roles as inherent and immutable may start to reconsider that position; but, really, at the end of the day, I just hope theatregoers enjoy a good chuckle while watching Camp Mannuppia!
3. How do you develop a play once you have an idea?
For me, that process can be… very long! I usually generate ideas instantaneously and can write quickly once I have a good outline in place, but going from idea to “I know what this looks like as a play” can literally take years. Camp Mannuppia’s process was unique in that I started it, put it on hold to write an entire other full-length play, then came back months later and finished it. I’ve found that, in my case, no two plays come together in quite the same way!
4. Tell us about yourself.
I grew up in New York but have lived in DC for 13+ years now. By day, I work in the marketing department at a civil engineering firm supporting our transit and rail team, and when I’m not doing that, I’m a playwright, book and theatre reviewer, and aspiring wrangler of unicorns. When asked about what I write, I usually respond “plays about women and queer people who are awkwardly attempting (and generally failing) to engage with serious subject matter using only dry wit and impeccably timed combative taunts.”
I’ve been fortunate enough to have plays produced and/or developed in DC, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, California, Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Washington, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona; Canada; Japan; South Korea; United Arab Emirates; Australia; and the UK. For more info about me, you can check out John-Bavoso.com.
5. What are you working on now?
Honestly… not a whole lot! As someone who usually writes at coffee shops or basically anywhere outside of my tiny studio apartment, the pandemic has not been a productive time (I am no Shakespeare, and my greatest works will definitely not produced in quarantine). I have started playing with a new gender-bending comedic romp in which a modern-day Zeus is ousted from Mt. Olympus by his children/fellow deities for being a PR nightmare and immediately kidnaps a Greek mythology-obsessed drag queen from Athens, GA… and learns lessons about consent and toxic masculinity in the process. I’m not sure if will turn into anything real, but it’s been nice to be excited about playing around with an idea again! I’m hoping 2021 will be a much more generative time for me.
6. What is coming up next for you?
I’ve got two things I’m excited about in 2021: This year, I was accepted to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference for the first time, which was postponed to next year (and hopefully it will actually happen!). Also, The Parsnip Ship podcast will be doing a live reading of my play MLM is for Murder (Or, Your Side Hustle is Killing Us) as part of their all-queer sixth season. I love pairing plays with music (I create excessively long and aggressively themed Spotify playlists for all my scripts) and they do a really great job, so I’m really looking forward to collaborating with them!