Theater Camp Is Too Sweet to Take Issue With

This celebration of dorks, divas, and devotion to one’s art would feel sweet at any time, but as actors join writers on the picket line, it ends up being a little spicy as well. Photo: Searchlight Pictures

Immediacy is the last thing on the mind of Theater Camp, a cheerfully nostalgic movie filled with children who worship Liza Minnelli and adults who love the performing-arts sanctuary of their youth so much they came back as teachers. But the past few months and days have managed to give this mild-mannered comedy a more urgent context. Theater Camp takes place on the ragtag grounds of AdirondACTS, a summer camp in upstate New York that every year welcomes for a few weeks of dramatic bliss dozens of extremely extra girls and overtly gay boys (the deviations are few enough that one kid’s entire character is his heterosexuality). But it’s not just about the pleasures of putting on a show. It’s about dealing with financial forces, like the banking group circling AdirondACTS, that aim to extract as much value as possible from the place despite having no grasp of what makes it great in the first place. This celebration of dorks, divas, and devotion to one’s art would feel sweet at any time, but as actors join writers on the picket line, it ends up being a little spicy as well.

And, honestly, Theater Camp could use as much added spice as possible. The film is a heavily improvised mockumentary in the mode of Christopher Guest, though aside from serving as an explanation for the handheld camerawork, the faux-doc premise only has bearing in the opening scenes. Beloved camp founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) is introduced, only to immediately fall into a coma due to what a title card informs us is “the first Bye Bye Birdie–related injury in the history of Passaic County,� with a note that the documentarians decided to continue filming as their subject’s hustle-bro son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), takes over. Theater Camp doesn’t opt for the interviews to camera where Guest’s work is often funniest, and in general doesn’t share Guest’s readiness to really ridicule his characters. The film was directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, expanding on a short that the pair made with co-writers Noah Galvin and Ben Platt during the pandemic (Lieberman is the only one of the four who doesn’t also star). It feels like a 12-ounce soda poured into a 20-ounce cup, not because it’s lacking material — between all the kids and the teachers, there are countless story lines — but because it’s hesitant to commit to its conflicts, up to and including the one where Patti Harrison plays a predatory financier who’s already acquired the rich-kid camp nearby.

Theater Camp really just wants to bask in the world it’s created, and it’s hard to complain about something being too affectionate. The film is obviously the work of people for whom similar experiences as children were hugely formative — it includes footage of Gordon and Platt, who play music director Rebecca-Diane and drama director Amos Klobuchar, performing together as kids. Key to the film is its understanding that the spectacle of children belting out songs written for adults, or putting on old-age makeup, or wanting to talk craft is endlessly delightful. It’s not just the juxtaposition of young performers with grown-up material that’s funny, but their absolute dedication, and the understanding that the chance to perform in camp deities Amos and Rebecca-Diane’s original musical really is the most important thing in these kids’ lives. The film’s adults approach the productions as if the stakes are just as high. In one of the best scenes, the teachers hash out casting and argue about which of their tiny charges is capable of the worldliness needed to play Lola in Damn Yankees.

These people aren’t getting in touch with their inner child — they just never left their inner theater kids behind. Owen Thiele, who gets most of the best lines as costume head Gigi Charbonier, is the grown-up version of a boy who’s never not been the drama in the room. Galvin, as soft-spoken tech director Glenn Winthrop, is the secret star who never got his chance in the spotlight. The movie is more gentle with its adults than with its children, only a few of whom distinguish themselves from the sea of earnest faces. The adults have, after all, already gone out into the world and gained an appreciation for how precious these weeks of caring about theater for the sheer, heady joy of it are, without worrying about how money fits into the equation. The woo-woo Rebecca-Diane and the demanding Amos, who’ve been sealed together in a codependent friendship since they were campers themselves, come to embody this dilemma, with Rebecca-Diane ready to shed the “aspiring� part of their “aspiring performers who teach� identity, and Amos ready to stay on at AdirondACTS forever. And with Theater Camp making it look like the most wonderful place on earth, who could blame him?