Noah Galvin and Ben Platt attend the Theater Camp premiere at Park City’s Eccles Theatre on Jan. 21, 2023.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Asked how they feel about making their Sundance debut in the mockumentary Theater Camp, newly engaged couple Ben Platt and Noah Galvin, in their first red carpet interview since the ring exchange, already sounded like an old married couple.
“It feels that much more special because we really deserved it, you know? We really earned it. We made a thing and they wanted us here,” Galvin said before his Tony Award-winning beau corrected him. “Nobody deserves anything. We’re just lucky and grateful to be here.”
They made the most of their Park City rendezvous as the Molly Gibson- and Nick Lieberman-directed film screened to a capacity crowd at the Eccles, And for an encore, the film’s young stars took the stage and performed a musical medley of original songs from the project to a standing ovation.
Theater Camp opens with a scene that sets up the rest of the film: Joan, the beloved founder of a run-down theater camp, played by Amy Sedaris, suffers a seizure due to a strobe light in a high school production of Bye, Bye Birdie. As summer rolls around again, kids are gathering from all over to attend her scrappy camp in upstate New York, amusingly called AdirondACTS. Her clueless “crypto-bro” son Troy, played by Jimmy Tatro, is tasked with keeping the thespian paradise running while being forced to navigate the drama with the camp’s staff, played by Platt, Gordon, Galvin, Ayo Edebiri, Nathan Lee Graham and Owen Thiele, as they mount a production in Joan’s honor.
“This is very much our passion project and we made it in a very small bubble with people we really love and who are nearest and dearest partners and best friends,” said Platt, who surprised revelers at the film’s official premiere party at Acura Festival Village by performing a karaoke rendition of Hamilton smash “The Schuyler Sisters.” “Now it feels insane and like an embarrassment of riches that it’s here on this amazing platform and there will be a room full of people watching it and maybe someone will distribute it.”
Their wish came true: Searchlight Pictures snagged the cinema verité project in a worldwide deal that includes theatrical for a high seven figures.
See the Theater Camp team in THR’s Studio at Sundance here.
Directors Nick Lieberman and Molly Gordon with their best friends and co-writers, Noah Galvin and Ben Platt, at Acura Festival Village.
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
Ben Platt, Alexander Bello, Jack Sobolewski and Luke Islam at the Theater Camp party at Acura Festival Village.
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
A version of this story first appeared in the Jan. 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.