Theatre Camp

The staff and the campers at a failing upstate New York theatre camp known as Adirond ACTS, an eclectic gaggle of actors, artists, entertainers, hams, headliners, extras, bit players, and crew, all bonded by their love of the stage, and especially the spotlight, must band together to give the greatest performance of their lives, in order to save their beloved camp when its even more beloved founder falls into a coma.

Packed with a ton of funny young talent, but stuck very deep within the long shadow of so many faux-documentaries that came before, specifically Waiting For Guffman, as well as classic summer camp films like the Meatballs franchise, and especially the 2003 Anna Kendrick comedy Camp (going so far as to do the same “lone straight boy at Theatre Camp” joke), the movie Theatre Camp is a cute and funny and authentic-feeling bit of theatre kid “inside-baseball” comedy, but it’s hampered by its obviously mostly-improvised script.

Which is not surprisingly.

Most of the time, these “mostly improvised” movies suck—especially the dramatic ones—but when they work, it’s magic. Unfortuantly, it’s a magic that looks easy, so a lot of fools take their shot, and like I said, they mostly suck.

It’s just… better to have a locked and complete shooting script. It’s just better. Let your actors riff, sure, if they can (and make sure to know whether or not they actually can). Let them play around, definitely. But you need a concrete script with directions, with purpose, with arcs, with a point, with lines! Know why you’re there, where you’re starting and where you’re ending, and most importantly, why, and know it all before you even start shooting, because if you don’t, most of your scenes will wither and die. And honestly, I think it’s fair to say at this point, given the current state of comedic films… Nothing good gets built solely in Post.

Besides, ask anyone who’s ever gone to an improv show as a favor for a friend, the fact is, sometimes, when you give a group of funny people a few prompts and then sit back to see what happens, the result is… nothing funny.

But, sure, sometimes it is.

But only sometimes!

Because there are a lot of genuinely funny people here, and some genuinely funny parts in this movie, maybe not enough to sustain the full 90 minutes, but… still, this is a good time, especially if you’re a theatre kid, and I’ll have you know that I played Dill in the Des Moines Community Theatre’s production of To Kill A Mockingbird, to rave review in the Des Moines Register I might add, so I think I’ve got my bona fides. But the simple fact here is that there isn’t enough funny, and certainly not enough “movie” that you could fairly call this one a “funny movie.”

So I enjoyed Theater Camp, somewhat… but it’s definitely no Waiting for Guffman.