I Am a Camera

{{short description|1951 Broadway play by John Van Druten}}

{{About|the play|the associated film|I Am a Camera (film)|the song by Yes and The Buggles|Into the Lens|the song by Gentle Giant|Civilian (Gentle Giant album)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2018}}

{{Infobox play

| name = I Am a Camera

| image = Julie Harris.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Julie Harris as Sally Bowles
Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, May 1952

| writer = John Van Druten, Adapted from the Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood

| characters = Christopher Isherwood
Fraulein Schneider
Fritz Wendel
Sally Bowles
Natalia Landauer
Clive Mortimer
Mrs. Watson-Courtneidge

| setting = A room in Fraulein Schneider's flat in Berlin 1930

| premiere = November 28, 1951

| place = Empire Theatre, New York City

| orig_lang =

| subject = An English writer living in Berlin before the rise of the Hitler regime

| genre = Drama

| web =

}}

I Am a Camera is a 1951 Broadway play by John Van Druten{{cite book|last=Van Druten |first=John|year=1951|title=I Am a Camera|url=https://archive.org/details/iamcameraplayin00vand |url-access=registration |publisher=Random House, Inc}}{{cite book|last=Van Druten |first=John|year=1998|title=I Am a Camera|publisher=Dramatists Play Service, Inc|isbn=0822205459}} adapted from Christopher Isherwood's 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin, which is part of The Berlin Stories. The title is a quotation taken from the novel's first page: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."{{cite book|last=Isherwood|first=Christopher|year=1963|title=The Berlin Stories: the Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin|publisher=New Directions|isbn=0811200701|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/berlinstories00ishe}} The original production was staged by John Van Druten, with scenic and lighting design by Boris Aronson and costumes by Ellen Goldsborough. It opened at the Empire Theatre in New York City on November 28, 1951 and ran for 214 performances before closing on July 12, 1952.{{cite web|author=Playbill Vault |url=http://www.playbillvault.com/Show/Detail/3946/I-Am-a-Camera|title=I Am a Camera on Broadway |access-date=27 October 2013}}

The production was a critically acclaimed success for both Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of five Tony Awards of her career for Best Leading Actress in a play, and for Marian Winters, who won both the Theatre World Award and Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play. The play also won for John Van Druten the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best American Play (1952). It also earned the famous review by Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica".Botto, Louis.[https://archive.today/20120907145523/http://www.playbill.com/features/article/118112-Quotable_Critics "Quotable Critics"] Playbill, May 28, 2008{{cite journal |last=Friedman |first=M. |title=Commercial expressions in American humor: an analysis of selected popular-cultural works of the postwar era |journal=Humor – International Journal of Humor Research |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=265–284 |issn=1613-3722 |doi=10.1515/humr.1989.2.3.265 |year=1989|s2cid=145418943 }}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2018}}