Full confession: I am not a theater kid. Right off the bat, this may be confusing given how much space I’ve dedicated to discussing live theater on here. Don’t get me wrong. I love going to shows and watching people perform. There is something exhilarating about seeing performers pouring their hearts out on a bare stage. I’ve known actors. I’ve seen the backstage and watched people produce a show, but I was never part of that community. I was, first and foremost, a fan. I was never taught the value of “the show must go on.” All that I can say is that it’s a world that I’m very curious about. It’s what makes me grateful for films like Theater Camp (2023).
For most of the month leading up to the film’s very short release, I was thrilled every time the trailer popped up. It looked to be a mockumentary that promised to make August a month for theater nerds. For those who collect cast recordings and have a Seth Rudetsky impersonation ready to go, this movie was for you. I’ll admit that I haven’t reached the stage of obsessive – partly from being a West Coast person who has never flown to Broadway. Still, the chances to see people crack jokes about Stephen Sondheim or Kander & Ebb made me anticipatory about what would go down. As sad as it was to predict (and be proven right) that the film would only play for two weeks, I am happy to have caught it on the big screen.
Chief among the reasons that this film became a must-see was because of Ben Platt. As a chief defender, it’s sometimes difficult to explain why I love him as much as I do because his film career hasn’t exactly been fortuitous. I may like Dear Evan Hansen (2021), but it’s more for what the story meant to me. His time on The Politician was, at best, messy. I’ve longed to see him translate what I see in his stage work to film, and this is the moment. Sitting there watching him finally play something beyond the entitled prick cliché he’s been stuck as was thrilling. He may be only a small piece of the bigger puzzle, but it’s a major reason that I love what this film achieves.
It's first and foremost a love letter to theater through the eyes of a camp. The premise starts with the owner of a renowned theater camp experiencing a heart attack while at a children’s version of a musical. Because of this, the effort to apply a Band-Aid to this difficult situation leaves the entire crew in a difficult position. Nobody loved teaching children about theater quite like her. As the pieces come together, it proves to be pure chaos. Their new teacher (Ayo Edibiri) lied her way into the position with zero experience in acting. Meanwhile, the composer duo, best friends (Platt and Molly Gordon), are in the midst of personal career crises that may pull them apart. Who is manning the ship? Well, it’s probably the most erratic choice imaginable.
The owner’s son doesn’t share the love of theater that she does. If anything, he’s dedicated to becoming a YouTube influencer. He’s got the phone recording at all hours, even hanging from selfie sticks, with the hope of releasing a documentary for marketing. The issue is that he doesn’t understand the process. He doesn’t recognize the effort it takes to put on a musical over the course of weeks. He just assumes everyone knows what they’re doing. Even as he sits in on meetings and accidentally oversteps his boundaries with inappropriate enthusiasm, there’s a clear separation between him and the group. He is the chaos factor, and I think the film gets away with it for one reason.
Theater Camp is the type of film that is dedicated to Murphy’s Law. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. It’s not like anything is set on fire or dies, but there’s still the effort to make this a 21st-century version of Summer Stock (1950). There is a need for financing and props as well as teachers who know how to speak to children. The irony comes when most of them are forced to play traumatized adult characters. Watching Platt coach a child to access pain that doesn’t exist is a hilarious piece of work made better by the child actors who really know how to play up the absurdity. Even if things look crazy from the outside, there is a shared comfort in respecting the process.
These are people who follow “the process.” They were raised since the very beginning to put on a show, and it’s seen in watching them perform Sweeney Todd numbers and do deep analysis on Patti Lupone. Jumping from plot to plot allows for an endearing mix of calm and disorder to be in constant play. From the child’s perspective, this is the most important part of their year. For the adults, it’s more a matter of not having the camp shut down until the owner returns. The son may be out of place and often gets strange looks, but he’s still eager to see the magic everyone brings to the stage. The fact that it includes children reenacting Studio 60 scenes of snorting cocaine only adds to the wonder of what this story achieves.
None of it is malicious and instead shows what it’s like to put on a show from every facet. There are those who are way too obsessed with the art, and then there are those who can’t help but wonder what the big deal is. Edibiri’s performance is very small, but it features a deadpan form of improvisation that suggests she learns how to act while failing to teach others. It’s a brilliant little piece of the puzzle and a good sign of how malleable the children are. They’ll go along with any of her lesson plans, even if they’re more based on audience suggestions than Stanislavsky. I don’t know that any film has fully captured the feeling of learning with this much enthusiasm before. Even if it seems scary and absurd, everyone wants to be there and it makes a leap of difference.
I also think that the film is a perfect commentary on contemporary theater, specifically in a post-2020 landscape. In an era where The Phantom of the Opera has closed, the old guards are changing. The effort to find financiers becomes more difficult as the people in charge of raising interest fail to understand the importance of history and culture. It may be well intentioned, but audiences will still want what is familiar, which is often to adapt familiar properties to the stage. It's why William Shakespeare gets a 90s pop remix, or Some Like It Hot (1959) becomes the latest jazz musical to hit the scene. While any reason to get on a stage is good, the effort to fall back on the popular leaves artists feeling unfulfilled, doing cruise gigs where they cover oldies for disinterested parties. The ethics of theater are the backbone of why Theater Camp is such a great film, though I don’t think it suggests that the future of art is a bleak one.
If anything, there is the pressure to persevere. Much like Summer Stock, this is less about what show is being put on but helping to find everyone’s voice. It is there in how the adults interact with the children, doing what they can to not push their anxieties onto a wide-eyed newbie. Somewhere in the chaos is a purpose, and everyone manages to spontaneously figure things out. Rarely has a film been able to show the level of duct tape applied to something falling apart and managed to make it look like gold. Everyone is there with a job, and by the end, you’re bought into the magic. You’re not sure how it got there, but everyone came together in the end. Even the bumbling son managed to finally “get” why theater is worth saving. It’s not so much for the success, but for the emotions that the audience has in the moment, witnessing creativity at its full potential.
This is Platt’s best movie so far. Even if his chemistry with Gordon feels reminiscent of his real-life friendship with Beanie Feldstein, there’s still this theater kid energy that makes you believe how seriously he takes his job. He’s very critical of the actors less out of perfectionism but the hope that they see the greater potential inside themselves. Meanwhile, he’s struggling to feel relevant when Gordon’s career path is going her own direction and he’s stuck in humiliating work. Putting on an absurd musical about the owner is his redemption arc. It may not be explicit in the show, but you can tell he at least has a talent for pushing boundaries. At the same time, the show never feels greater than it is. It’s supposed to be made in weeks from start to finish, and you can tell. Even the way that Gordon’s inattention to the project is present in the few shortcomings. Nothing slows it down. It’s probably not going to be Off-Broadway next season, but it’s definitely a heartfelt work that really makes the soundtrack here worth checking out.
Again, I am not a theater kid. This world of behind the scenes magic is foreign to me. With that said, I am grateful that this film exists. It may become one of my go-to late summer watches because it feels like one of those wonderful adventures you go on during the waning days, doing what you can to find the passion in a time of nothingness. There’s plenty of cleverness in the references and I imagine the overreacting around rituals is something familiar to actors. To me, this works as a snapshot of a time we all will cherish for the rest of our lives. It may have been far from perfect, but we still did the best we could to make it matter. Theater Camp may be a modest production, but that doesn’t make it bad. If anything, it makes it all the more charming. Even as the future of live theater remains uncertain, actors will put on a show. It’s what they do. It’s all they can do. And yes, I remain grateful for that.
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