Laurel
Graeber

March 27, 2015

No one, you’ll be relieved to learn, sings “Kumbaya.” Arts and crafts haven’t made the list of activities. And neither, oddly, has theater. But Camp Kappawanna, the primary setting of the fresh and funny new musical of the same name from Atlantic for Kids, part of Atlantic Theater Company, still resembles real institutions: Campers’ baggage includes more than outfits and bug spray, and insecurities flourish here as much as at middle school. Gina (Lydian Blossom), Kappawanna’s director, embraces the rundown camp with the scruffy enthusiasm of her former life as an amateur rocker. (You can bet that the Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Lisa Loeb, who collaborated on the music and lyrics with Michelle Lewis and Dan Petty, lets Gina display her inner Joan Jett.) But the camp initially horrifies Nick (Wes Zurick), a video game geek, and Veronica (Faye Rex), a fashion-obsessed elitist who wonders how she ended up here. “I’m guessing Daddy made some bad investments,” Gina responds, displaying the sly wit that characterizes much of the book, by Cusi Cram and Peter Hirsch.