At the Best of Fringe, “CAMP!” Captures the Joy and Heartbreak of Growing Up – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Toronto Fringe Review: Bravo Academy and Mixtape Projects deliver one of the festival’s defining breakout musicals

By Ross

One of the greatest frustrations of every theatre festival is knowing that no matter how carefully you plan, something extraordinary will inevitably slip through your fingers. This year, that show was CAMP!. By the time I realized just how much excitement surrounded Bravo Academy and Mixtape Projects‘ new musical, nearly every performance had sold out. Thankfully, the Toronto Fringe’s Best of Fringe selection gave me one last opportunity to catch it during its encore performances at the Jane Mallett Theatre. Walking out ninety minutes later, I understood exactly why audiences had embraced it so passionately, happily climbing aboard for one last trip to Camp Clover. CAMP! is, without a doubt, one of the breakout hits of this year’s Fringe Festival and one of the most emotionally generous pieces of theatre I have seen all summer.

Created by the Dora Award-nominated team of Ben Kopp and Margot Greve, whose previous collaboration Iris (says goodbye) remains one of my favourite productions from last year’s Fringe, CAMP! once again demonstrates their extraordinary ability to find profound emotional truth inside seemingly familiar situations. Summer camp has become a pretty recognizable coming-of-age setting, but Greve’s sharply observed book quickly moves beyond nostalgia. Yet, before we meet any of these campers individually, the theatre fills with that unmistakable wall of sound only overexcited pre-teens can produce, dozens of excited voices tumbling over one another in a glorious burst of anticipation.

It immediately transports us back to summer camp, where every arrival feels like the beginning of another adventure. Nova and August have spent nearly every summer together since childhood. Now seventeen, they return to Camp Clover barely able to acknowledge one another beyond a cordial nod, their friendship fractured by an event no one else seems able to explain. Their fellow campers respond the only way teenagers can. They speculate wildly, invent elaborate theories, and gradually become determined to solve a mystery that is far more intimate than any of them (beyond maybe one) can seemingly imagine.

That mystery unfolds with remarkable confidence. Greve allows the audience to laugh at the increasingly absurd rumours surrounding Nova and August’s falling out while quietly laying the emotional groundwork for something considerably deeper. Every camp tradition becomes another opportunity for old wounds to surface. Capture the Flag, campfire gatherings, canoe trips, competitions, and the final dance all become milestones in a friendship desperately trying to stay afloat as childhood begins drifting toward adulthood. What emerges is a story about that strange moment when childhood begins giving way to adulthood, when the people who once understood us completely suddenly feel impossibly distant.

The decision to cast performers who genuinely fall within the age of their characters proves invaluable. Rather than asking adult actors to recreate teenage awkwardness, CAMP! allows its young company to bring lived authenticity to every interaction. There is not a weak performance anywhere in the ensemble. Jordan Gurbin gives August a quiet emotional openness that gradually reveals the hurt beneath his defensive exterior, while Kayla Morgan brings Nova both determination and vulnerability, allowing us to understand why neither character seems capable of taking the first step toward reconciliation.

Around them, the camp comes vividly to life through a wonderfully committed supporting company. John Beer Principe nearly steals every scene as Vinny, delivering effortless comic timing without ever reducing the character to caricature. Arabella Ho makes Moira wonderfully entertaining as one of the campers most energetically determined to unravel the mystery, while Alicia Goncalves gives Frances warmth, humour, and genuine heart. Cameron Kuwayti, Elliot Metcalf, and Fern Wallenberg complete an ensemble that feels less like a cast and more like an actual cabin of teenagers who have spent years growing up together.

Ben Kopp’s score is one of the production’s greatest pleasures. The songs arrive with infectious energy, clever lyricism, and a musical vocabulary that feels perfectly suited to these characters. One inspired sequence built around the familiar never-ending camp song game becomes one of the evening’s funniest and most inventive moments, transforming a simple childhood pastime into dazzling theatrical storytelling. Throughout the production, Kopp balances playful humour with emotional honesty, ensuring the music never interrupts the drama but continually deepens it. Performed with superb live accompaniment under his own musical direction, the score becomes the heartbeat of the production.

The staging embraces imagination over excess. Quynh Diep’s deceptively simple arrangement of log stumps and a chalkboard creates an endlessly flexible playground where the audience willingly fills in the forests, cabins, lakes, and campfire circles with their own imagination. That simplicity becomes one of the production’s greatest strengths, allowing the performers and their relationships to remain at the centre, much like the canoes that quietly carry so many of Camp Clover’s most important conversations.

Mathilda Kane’s lighting gently shifts the atmosphere from carefree summer afternoons to quieter moments of reflection, while Frank Incer’s sound design supports both the intimacy of the dialogue and the exuberance of the musical numbers without overwhelming either. Under Greve’s direction, with choreography shared with Alli Carry, every transition flows with the restless energy of teenagers who never seem to stop moving until they are suddenly forced to sit with feelings they have been trying to outrun.

Part of what makes CAMP! resonate so deeply is its refusal to manufacture villains. Nobody here is entirely right. Nobody is entirely wrong. Friendships sometimes fracture because growing up changes us in ways we cannot immediately explain, even to ourselves. Greve treats those emotional shifts with remarkable generosity, trusting young audiences to recognize themselves while allowing older audiences to remember friendships that once felt permanent before quietly slipping away.

And to think I almost missed CAMP! Instead, I found myself welcomed into Camp Clover alongside these kids, laughing through their games, feeling every awkward silence, and hoping two friends might find their way back to one another before summer ran out. When Camp Clover finally leaves them alone in a canoe with no paddles, they have nowhere left to go except toward one another. That hope is what gives CAMP! its extraordinary emotional power, and it is why this beautiful new musical deserves every bit of the enthusiasm it has inspired. Like the friendships at its heart, CAMP! deserves a life that stretches well beyond a single summer.