There’s no business like show business,” Ethel Merman famously sang. And the aspiring young thespians at Adirond ACTS theater camp would agree. Everyone is ecstatic for a summer of improv games, jazz hands and show-stopping ballads.
Joan, the camp’s founder, has a knack for inspiring theater students. Every year she travels to different schools, pitching her camp to parents. But summer is when the show really gets started (literally). In a few short weeks, the Adirond ACTS students learn the blocking, choreography and music for four productions. Aided by quirky theater instructors Amos and Rebecca-Diane (who met and became childhood best friends at Adirond ACTS), Joan always makes her theater-filled summers worthy of a standing ovation.
But as the students prepare for their summer at Adirond, Joan has a seizure while watching a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie. Joan slips into a coma, leaving Adirond ACTS in the hands of her incompetent son, Troy, who is clearly not a theatergoer.
Troy believes his “business skills” and “crypto knowledge” will help keep the struggling theater camp afloat. Unfortunately, with the bank threatening to foreclose, it might take more than Troy’s “en-troy-preneurship” (as he calls it) to keep the camp from closing.
Luckily, this summer’s production calendar may at least partly save the day. It includes showstoppers such as Cats, Those D–n Yankees, The Crucible Jr. and an original musical in honor of Adirond ACTS’ founder, titled Joan, Still. Amos, Rebecca-Diane and the rest of the quirky theater instructors (including choreographer Clive, costume designer Gigi and technical director Glenn) use their blend of artistic oddness and mic tape to motivate the students to follow their theatrical dreams.
Joan’s vision for Adirond ACTS is to provide a place “where anyone can be themselves.” The campers talk about how theater has become like a second home for many of them, providing a safe place where they feel accepted. The way the theater students collaboratively create something they’re passionate about is charming, and while the sweet moments can be a bit cheesy, people who grew up with theater might be reminded of their own cherished moments.
Although their friendship is rocky, Amos and Rebecca-Diane support one another through hardships. And Amos is a committed and inspirational teacher (though admittedly blunt at times). Even when he feels defeated, he willingly sits down with his students to help them improve their craft.
While this movie does rely on some crude forms of humor (which we’ll discuss at length in the following sections), its main form of comedy is theater kids making fun of themselves. From the eccentric theater teachers to the strange vocal and dance warmups, Theater Camp allows theater lovers to sit back and laugh and their goofy tendencies.
While describing the plot for their production of Those D–n Yankees, Amos and Rebecca-Diane talk about playing baseball with the devil. The students are also performing The Crucible, a play about the Salem Witch Trials (although scenes from this play are not shown in the movie).
After auditions, the camp’s power goes out, and the theater teachers start their casting process with candles as their light source. During this scene, someone makes a joke about séances, and some of the campers pretend to cast spells, referring to themselves as “gay witches.” In one of Rebecca-Diane’s theater classes, they do a “past life seminar” in which students hold hands in a circle and learn about their supposed past lives. In another scene, kids say that they’re supposed to be “manifesting on the full moon.”
Rebecca-Diane claims she has the power to spiritually contact other people. In one scene, she attempts to contact Joan, pretending Joan has possessed her and can speak through her. We’re also told that she accidentally sets a ship on fire after performing a séance.
A girl asks Troy if she can borrow Joan’s dream journals to help with her characterization for a role. Amos tells the campers that “emotionally, physically and spiritually,” Joan, Still will be the hardest thing they’ve ever done. Rebecca-Diane tells a new teacher that her “energy is chaotic,” but she has “energy healing” abilities that could help. Amos and Rebecca-Diane claim they share a soul.
A camper worries about running late for their niece’s christening, and woman claims she watches Troy’s vlog videos “religiously.” A poster for Jesus Christ Superstar appears in one scene.
Troy does not understand the difference between a straight (that is, traditional) play and a musical, so he asks what a “gay play” would be, to which Glenn replies “I guess … a musical.” In an improv scene, a student is instructed to act like a lesbian lover. We also learn that Rebecca-Diane used to have a crush on Amos until he came out to her as gay. Amos tells a story about one of his male partners, and male characters wear skirts and have painted nails. Amos and Rebecca-Diane share that they have always wanted to star in a gender reversed production of Romeo and Juliet, and the pride flag can be spotted in the background of several scenes. One camper has two dads, and later this camper “comes out” as straight.
Although it is clearly part of a theatrical performance, girls dress up as boys and vice versa. One adult male character wears full makeup and female clothing (including one semi-tight bodysuit) in the show. During this production, adults and children do some slightly sensual dancing.
While a young girl auditions with a song from Les Miserables, Amos says he can picture her playing a French prostitute. He later corrects himself by calling the role a “sex worker.” During the casting process, Rebecca-Diane worries that a student doesn’t have enough sexuality to play a certain role. The other theater teachers talk about how all of the students are probably virgins.
In one scene, Troy gazes at a woman on a theater Playbill, calling her “hot.” During a costume design class, students see a painting of a woman showing her cleavage, and Gigi refers to a dress as having a “peekaboo vaginal sleeve.” Troy claims he feels naked without his video-production ring light, and a boy is seen without a shirt. While the adults sit around a campfire, Clive tells a story about a time he was nude.
It is implied that Troy has sex with a woman (though we don’t see the interaction). A character talks about how he used to make his video game Sims have sex, and we learn that Joan had an affair with her professor when she was younger. A man tells Troy that Barnwell Capital (the company running Adirond’s rival summer camp) isn’t a company he should “go to bed with,” and there is a group of students who were in a production of Rent (a musical with concerning themes about sexuality).
We see a kid sitting on another kid’s lap and some campers slow dancing at a party, but neither of these instances seem sexual. A teacher instructs her students to perform an improv scene in which one of them is cheating on the other.
Although the moment isn’t particularly graphic, Joan has a seizure which causes her to pass out.
In a flashback scene, young Troy attempts to do a trick on a scooter, but he falls down instead. When the cast list for a production is released, students sprint and push each other to see the results. A student from a stage combat class slaps another camper.
A camper performs a scene predicated on the “chilling story of how she lost her son.” Someone complains that her acting was triggering, and it caused a man to have a Vietnam flashback.
Adult characters use harsh profanity including two uses of the f-word (once heard in background music) and two uses of the s-word. There are also 15 misuses of God’s name (twice paired with “d–n”) and three misuses of Jesus’ name.
Adults and children alike utter profanity including three uses of “d–n,” two uses of “b–ch,” two uses of “a–” and single uses of “p-ss,” “h—” and “jeez.”
Drug and alcohol content is played for laughs. In one scene, Troy asks the campers if any of them stole his CBD gummies. After he looks around at the crowd, it is highly implied that one of the child campers stole and consumed these substances. Campers say that they think Troy “smokes drugs.”
A scene in the musical Joan, Still references cocaine. Part of this scene’s stage direction includes a white feather boa (meant to represent cocaine) being pulled through a Paper Mache nose. We also learn that a man has a cocaine addiction.
The campers highly value throat coat tea to help their singing voices, and a scene riffs on a drug deal, using throat coat instead. After finding out that a girl used a “tear stick” (a menthol-infused stick of wax that triggers natural tearing) to help her cry onstage, Rebecca-Diane claims that tear sticks are “doping” for actors, and that the girl is the Lance Armstrong of theater.
After a long day at camp, the adult theater teachers drink a collection of alcohol that was confiscated from campers. There is also a scene in which the camp’s cook drinks a bottle of cooking alcohol while making a camp meal, and a character claims that a man is “practically drunk.” Children serve alcohol at a dinner event.
While Joan and Rita (the camp manager) recruit kids for their camp, they discuss that one kid (who they think is untalented) might get a part anyway because his parents have money. Children perform an obviously ironic song with the lyrics “women cannot read,” and during his audition, a student sings a song about filing for divorce.
Musicals referenced through posters or songs can be problematic in their own right (though we don’t see those problems on screen).
We learn that Gigi, the costume designer, gave kids piercings in a hut during previous summers. This summer, however, he has to stop because a student “narced” (told on him). Students perform a scene in which they discuss having irritable bowel syndrome.
Troy tells the students they get to participate in an acting exercise, but the kids are actually being waiters for a dinner party. Characters argue and insult one another, and campers sneak out of their cabins at night. A kid tells a woman that since she’s good at lying, she would make a great talent agent.
As a “theater kid” myself, Theater Camp was a movie that appealed to me. As soon as I saw Dear Evan Hansen’s Ben Platt singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” in the trailers, I made plans to go see this mockumentary-style movie.
And in many ways, Theater Camp appeals to childhood theater nostalgia. The chaos of tech week, cast-list drama and the reminder to “cheat out” (or turn your body to face the audience) easily reminds in-the-know viewers of their high school theater days. As someone who found her second home in the theater, the message about feeling accepted in the performing arts resonated with me, and I’d venture many theater lovers will feel similarly.
But for everything Theater Camp does well, it relies too strongly on drug references, problematic spirituality, sexual jokes and profanity. Both instances of the f-word seemed completely gratuitous, and the drug references (played for laughs) felt forced.
While Theater Camp will likely remind theater lovers of their moments in the limelight, the movie’s content issues will upstage its messages for most families.
