The Livingston Film Series is delighted to present a free screening of Theater Camp on 2/8/24 in the Dulcie Theatre at the Shane Lalani Center for the Arts in Livingston.
Theater Camp
This loving chronicle of the on-and-off stage shenanigans at a summer drama camp in the Adirondacks is the movie equivalent of a yarn-and-popsicle-stick weaving your kid brought home from crafts class. Theater Camp was co-directed and co-written by one of its stars, The Bear’s, Molly Gordon, based in part on remembrances of her own childhood friendship with co-star Ben Platt. The pair’s longtime friend Nick Lieberman co-wrote and co-directed with Gordon, while Platt’s now-fiancé Noah Galvin plays the key role of an overworked production manager. All those crisscrossing real-life connections somehow result not in one of those too-many-cooks comedies that feel like a collection of sketches, but in a cohesive and warmhearted 93-minute tribute to arts pedagogy (think School of Rock, but with Sondheim) and to the self-serious drama teen who lives within us all. Yes, the mockumentary-style framing device is overfamiliar and distracting, but it falls away after the first few scenes, and the camp’s big end-of-summer production Joan, Still—a deranged original musical with at least two songs I still burst into at random six months later—achieves the rare trick of creating a fictional work-within-the-work that is supposed to be really good, and actually is. Written by Dana Stevens
This free screening takes place on Thursday, April 11th at 7pm. Doors open 30 minutes prior to showtime.
The Dulcie Theatre and lobby are equipped with a UV air filtration system.
Livingston Film Series is generously sponsored by Marilyn Clotz & Mary Ann Bearden and Donald B. Gimbel.