The Grown-Ups

by Skylar Fox & Simon Henriques
directed by Skylar Fox
created with and performed by Emily Elyse Everett, Simon Henriques, Chloe Joy Ivanson, Abby Melick, and Justin Phillips

The campers are all finally asleep, and the lake is getting quiet. Have a beer; make a s’more; tell a scary story. Figure out what you’re going to have to do in the morning to keep camp fun and safe without letting the kids find out about...well, you’ve seen the news. I just got a push notification—they’re getting closer. 

Following a group of camp counselors trying to mold the leaders of tomorrow when tomorrow is looking bleaker and bleaker, The Grown-Ups explores the traditions that change us, what it takes for us to change them, and how to change yourself when you’re hopelessly, tragically not prepared for this.

The Grown-Ups premiered in my backyard in July 2021. The sold-out run extended until it was so cold we couldn’t perform outside anymore. In summer 2022, we took the show on tour to Theater with a View in Pottstown, PA and Constellation Stage & Screen in Bloomington, IN.

You can purchase the script or license the show through Concord Theatricals.

Here are some nice things people said about the show:

Time Out New York gave the show four stars and put it on their list of the Top 10 NYC Theatre Productions of 2021. They called it “the coolest new play you probably can’t see” and wrote that “Fox and Henriques weave their plot lines skillfully and suspensefully as they investigate questions of progress, perspective and responsibility; the world of the camp is rich with precise detail, and the cast maintains an impressive degree of naturalism even from just a few feet away from the spectators.”

No Proscenium said that the show had “one of the darkest and wittiest scripts I have experienced in the immersive world,” and included us on their list of the best immersive theatre of 2021.

Broad Street Review said that “this superlative production...keeps the balance between humor, suspense, nostalgia, and possibility just right. To make matters better, I can’t remember a stronger ensemble.”

TheaterMania said, “This evocative and deeply unsettling meditation on the uncertainty of life in a culturally divided society more than meets the national moment.”