Orlando Fringe 2025
Your Camp, Mein Kamp: The Musical Political Satire
Boiled Horse Productions
Genre: character comedy, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Feminist Theatre, LGBTQIA+, Musical Theatre, Political, Satire
Venue: Pink
Festival: Orlando Fringe
Low Down
A show which should not have to exist but dares to fight back.
Review
Storytime: I arrived at the Orlando Fringe two weeks ago. I’m staying with a wonderful family who have agreed to billet me. Billeting, for those less aware, are hosts family who agree to take in fringe artists from out of town. One of my billeters had been lucky enough to catch many of the press previews before the festival began. I asked him for his early opinion on the fringe shows. His voice lowered to a hushed whisper:
“I just saw that show- uh… Your camp? My? Mein Kampf? When the fascists take over, they’re going to be the first people shot.”
Talk about an intriguing marketing pitch. The intrigue around this show only grew meeting the artists beforehand, hearing praise throughout the festival, and my growing frustration that I would miss the show because of my packed performance and reviewing schedule. Luckily for me, Your Camp, Mein Kamp won the patron’s pick, affording me the opportunity to see the show. And yeah, my billeter was right. When the fascists take over, they will be the first ones shot for daring to speak out so bravely.
Your Camp, Mein Kamp is a terrifying satire. The show takes place over two weeks in a child concentration camp. Two “formerly woke” camp counselors plan their elaborate escape. A nurse keeps her head down, trying to help the children in the camp. Elon Musk does ketamine. Your Camp, Mein Kamp has all the makings of trivial satire. It’s a musical with political lyric changes to classics like “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “The Candyman.” It has puppets, low-brow jokes, and all the obvious woke theatre trappings. From an initial glance, it is simply the woke queer left being angry at the alt-right’s usual nonsense. The show could have used some tightening in the comedic elements. I also think it could have been nastier and meaner at times. For as unapologetic as the show is, some jokes do not twist the knife as much as they should.
That said, Your Camp, Mein Kamp will leave you with scars. The show’s ultimate purpose is to acknowledge our collective complicity in the state of America. The show guides audiences to that terrifying revelation that this is not satire, it’s reality. The world of Your Camp, Mein Kamp is not from satirical fantasy, but history. Humanity has done these horrible things before. Our quietness, our complacency, our indoctrination into a neoliberal world have created the conditions for fascism. The pansy, pacifist “woke” have not resisted in any meaningful way. Those who wish to keep their heads down and remain apolitical are just as guilty.
The most terrifying part of the show came when the two counselors argued over which children they should take with them on their escape. It rang of the complex ethical dilemmas of Schindler’s List and Sophie’s Choice. Ultimately, they do not take any of the children with them, leaving them all to die on Musk’s space rocket project. It’s heartbreaking, but as they acknowledge, there is no right choice in these conditions. After all, how do you even choose which child lives or dies? Even if they do save one, there is no chance any of them may live. The apolitical nurse runs away with a baby, realizing her power of individual resistance, even if such an act is suicidal and likely doing little to make a greater change. We’ve all fallen into the fascist trap. Now, we’re just trying to survive. Boiled Horse Productions dares to defy, denounce, and resist. If the rest of us did as well, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
