Ben Platt and Molly Gordon try to keep a struggling youth theater camp afloat in a comedy for anyone who experienced the joys and traumas of summer camp for performing arts. To save the camp, they enlist their ragtag band of kids to stage a masterpiece.
The film is an expansion of the short film on the same topic that they released at the start of the Covid pandemic. At Sundance, the filmmakers sat down with Hollywood Reporter to talk about their own experiences at camp:
Via Variety:
The driving concept behind “Theater Camp” — which sold to Searchlight for high seven figures at the Sundance Film Festival — is that it’s funny to watch a bunch of kids subjected to tough-love auditions and egregiously inappropriate acting exercises by unqualified adults. A pint-sized aspiring agent (Alan Kim, “Minari”) works the phones, hyping his classmates. Another boy (Donovan Colan) struggles with coming out — as straight — to his two dads.
The film also stars Jimmy Tatro and Noah Galvin and a whole bunch of up-and-coming young performers.
As they prepare for their epic musical about Studio 54, replete with a cocaine chorus line, the kids get a stern reminder: “You think this is fun and games? It’s not fun! It’s art!”
Watch.
Images: Searchlight Pictures
