'Theater Camp' Knows Exactly Why We Need the Campy Summer Comedy

So, you’ve already booked tickets for your Barbenheimer double feature. You're saving cinema, right? Well, those eye-catching cardboard cutouts and marketing memes are causing you to overlook the real rebels of the season. Barbie and Oppenheimer, this summer's not like other blockbusters blockbusters aren’t the only titles subverting franchise fare. 2023's slate of summer comedies is coming in hot—and it's leaving no trope left unturned.

Joy Ride is a refreshing remix on the raunchy road trip comedy, while the upcoming Bottoms promises a queer (and bloody?) take on the high school sex comedy. A24’s Problemista sees Julio Torres take his singularly Julio Torres spin on the hero’s journey. Even the highly formulaic No Hard Feelings feels like a knowing wink at this point—playing so hard into the canon of sex comedies like American Pie and I Love You, Beth Cooper that it almost feels like metacommentary.

This year, we finally have an addition to the campy summer comedy canon—with a refreshing wave of sincerity, to boot. Offering the pastoral getaway of a summer camp flick to an audience who would probably cry if they were dropped off at a traditional summer camp, this mockumentary is a toast to (and roast of!) the theater kid.

Enter from stage left: Theater Camp.

Theater Camp sees Ben Platt, Molly Gordon, Noah Galvin, and Nick Lieberman team up to extend their YouTube video of the same name—which has gained a cult following since its 2020 debut—into a feature-length film. Written by all four of the IRL friends, Theater Camp is Gordon's directorial debut, co-directing the project alongside Lieberman. (Gordon is now most recognizable for her role as Claire in the latest season of The Bear, but she's steadily made a name for herself in comedies like Booksmart and the indie favorite Shiva Baby.)

Theater Camp follows a summer at AdirondACTS—a fictional upstate New York theater camp where precocious young thespians grow under the instruction of Broadway hopefuls—who are reluctantly working as drama teachers. ("For now.) Theater Camp's meta-parody will be immediately apparent to anyone familiar with the team of theater kids behind it. Platt and Galvin, who are fiancées, are the first two actors to portray Evan Hansen on Broadway, respectively. And Gordon and Platt’s onscreen dynamic—as lifelong friends bonded through AdirondACTS—is not entirely unlike their friendship, forged through Los Angeles community theater as children.

I’ll admit that the film’s opening, in which real home videos of Gordon and Platt onstage as children are intercut between “archival” footage of Theater Camp’s child actors, made me wary. However, any initial notes of unchecked self-seriousness are quickly undercut by the film’s inciting incident: Amy Sedaris takes the screen as AdirondACTS founder and matriarch Joan Rubinsky... and almost immediately suffers a seizure. The episode is induced by strobe lights at a youth production of Bye, Bye Birdie. She goes into a coma, leaving the camp at a loss for leadership.

The mockumentary’s cheeky text cutaway reads, “It was the first Bye Bye, Birdie-related injury in the history of Passaic County.” It doesn’t exactly stick the landing on an otherwise shocking gag. But, from that moment on, Theater Camp’s tone is clear: Camp is in session.

It’s in Theater Camp’s unabashed campiness that the comedy finds its stride. From its character archetypes to the very arc of the film, Theater Camp leans in on familiar formulas.

American Vandal comedian Jimmy Tatro plays the perfect idiot as Joan’s son Troy, a vlogging entrepreneur who “feels naked without [his] ring light.” He's tasked with taking over the camp. Galvin, meanwhile, plays the shy stagehand waiting for his day in the spotlight. The Bear's Ayo Edebiri jumps into the action as Janet, a last-minute hire who has lied about her theater experience to hilarious consequence. And, of course, Gordon and Platt’s duo of codependent counselors Rebecca-Diane and Amos go through a dramatic rift while directing the camp’s big production, entering a classic “Dark Night of the Soul” beat—just before opening night.

Perhaps most trope-y of all, though, is the central conflict of Theater Camp, uttered by one of the thespians: “If we’re going to stop the rival camp from tearing down our theater, then we’re going to have to give this crowd the best show they’ve ever seen.” Patti Harrison (I Think You Should Leave, Shrill) plays the perfect suit-wearing villain as Caroline Krauss, a financial consultant for the wealthy neighboring Camp Lakeside. She's eager for the bank to foreclose on the financially failing AdirondACTS. The cartoonishly familiar archetype provides the perfect framing for Harrison’s wackiness—she deadpans lines like, “Um, guys, this is a tear-down. Yeah, we’re gonna tear the place down.”

Of course, Theater Camp feels like a clear callback to comedies Wet Hot American Summer and Waiting for Guffman—even just from its improv-centric dialogue and casting of today’s top comedic talents. Rebecca-Diane and Amos feel like a loose rendition of Amy Poehler and Bradley Cooper’s drama teacher duo in Wet Hot. Even Edebiri's performance feels reminiscent of Molly Shannon in Wet Hot—both characters forming a hilarious dynamic as borderline peers with their pupils.

Theater Camp finds its Guffman in the “Founding Ballers,” a group of TikTok business influencers that Troy recruits as investors for AdirondACTS. And, like Waiting for Guffman, our heroes manage to pull off the lofty achievement of a stage production that is truly a riot to watch. (Titled Joan, Still, the musical tells the story of Joan—complete with Studio 54 cocaine innuendos and a livestream placed at the wrong hospital bed.)

However, while its predecessors lean fully into absurdity, Theater Camp maintains a distinct tether to sincerity. At first glance, this element of the film’s tone might feel like it’s missing the mark—at least as far as the mockumentary genre goes. But, as the film progresses, it's clear that this balance is what ultimately encapsulates the film's “theater kid energy.” Who else could lean so hard into tropes, formulas, and general silliness without hiding behind the safe veil of total irony? Leave it to the theater kids to go all out and wear their heart on their sleeves.

It’s a tough line to toe, but one that pays off at the film’s pivotal moments. When Amos (spoiler alert!) twists the knife that Rebecca-Diane is abandoning him—by specifying that she’s taking a “non-narrative” gig on a cruise—you’ll believe it as an earnest dig and not just a quippy one-liner. Janet’s pride for an inappropriate demonstration of two campers’ stage combat skills? It feels oddly moving. Even the campers’ bullying of Troy as a “cishet bitch” feels like a poignant remix of summer camp bullying jabs of yesterday.

Just as theater camps have offered the pastime of summer camp to those that might not otherwise have had the opportunity to join in the fun, Theater Camp’s arrival to the oddball comedy canon injects a new, misfit target audience into its classic formula. Whether you can match pitch with its niche references, or are just in need of lighthearted summer getaway, you’ll find a role of your own within Theater Camp.

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