‘Theater Camp’ Cast Didn’t Recognize Noah Galvin in Finale Makeup (Video)

Note: Spoilers for “Theater Camp” are included.

Searchlight Pictures’ “Theater Camp” is a delightfully fun look at the wacky world of youth theater camps that draws inspiration from some of the best documentary features. “‘Metallica Some Kind of Monster’ or ‘War Room’ [was] a huge influence on us,” codirector Nick Lieberman told TheWrap. “Frederick Wiseman’s ‘Salesman,’ those movies all have moments that are some of my favorite funniest moments in movies. The challenge was how can you create that feeling, or create that spirit or write to that spirit?”

Ben Platt and Noah Galvin play two of the teachers working with the camp’s budding actors. They also worked on the film’s original songs (with Galvin also acting as cowriter on the script). “This movie is an amalgam of all of us,” Galvin said. “The characters we play are little scrapbooks of all of the teachers and theater people that we’ve collected along the way.”

And everyone used their knowledge of Broadway musicals to craft together their pitch-perfect finale: a full-scale musical tribute to the fictional camp’s founder, Joan (Amy Sedaris). To craft the musical, entitled “Joan, Still,” Galvin, Platt, Mark Sonnenblick and Molly Gordon drew from numerous filmic inspirations to write the numbers.

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“I put together a list of references for each of the numbers, like, the song wants to feel like ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ meets ‘Hello, Dolly,'” said Platt. Case in point, a song set in Studio 54 found its origins in Galvin and Platt watching the 2006 documentary “Life After Tomorrow,” about the various actresses who starred in “Annie” on Broadway. “A lot of them talked about how they had gone to Studio 54 as kids,” Platt said. “We were like, ‘Oh my god, a bunch of young kids at Studio 54. What would that be like?'”

But once the music was written, the challenge was actually putting “Joan, Still” into the finished film with Galvin in the title role. “Molly and Nick had a very different vision for what I was going to look like,” Galvin said. “They were like, ‘Janky drag, janky drag.’ This is probably done by a child in a dimly lit backstage area.” Once Galvin sat down in the makeup chair, though, makeup artist Andrew Sotomayor had different ideas. “He was like, ‘We’re going full beat. We’re gluing down these brows and we are going whole hog.’ And I was like, ‘Listen, I’m down.'”

Though once Galvin was in full Joan regalia, no one recognized him, including castmembers Jimmy Tatro and Platt’s manager.

“My manager came to visit and he was like, ‘I want to see Noah. Where’s Noah?’ I was like, ‘Right there,'” Platt said.

While Galvin might have been unrecognizable, it was important to Lieberman that audiences knew it was him when he showed up on stage. “Our one important thing to us is that when you see Noah in the film you know that it’s Noah,” he said.

Watch the full interview in the video above.

“Theater Camp” is in theaters now.

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