Arts, Crafts & Performance: camps for adults

Sewing, knitting, circus, theatre, improv, and book camps. The craft is serious; the mess-hall meals and cabin gossip are pure summer camp. We track 7 camps in this lane, 6 currently active. The 1 that is on hiatus or gone stay listed and clearly marked, because half the internet still recommends them.

Active camps

• Broadway Fantasy Camp

  New York · theatre

  A Manhattan fantasy camp for adults who never shook the theatre bug: rehearse numbers from big musicals with Broadway pros, tour backstage at a Broadway house, do headshots and mock auditions where everyone gets cast, and toast at an opening-night party.

  Active$500 to $999

• Bummer Camp

  Wisconsin · bookish sleepaway for readers

  Bestselling author Ann Garvin spun her camp-set novel Bummer Camp into a real women-only readers' retreat in the Wisconsin woods.

  ActiveCreator-runVaries / not published

• Camp Improv Utopia

  California / New York / Colorado · improv comedy training sleepaway camp for adults

  A nonprofit-run network of 18+ improv sleepaway camps where campers split their days between workshops with top improv instructors (Craig Cackowski among 2026 East faculty) and genuine camp fare like archery, axe throwing, and arts and crafts.

  ActiveVaries / not published

• Camp Workroom Social

  New York · craft (garment sewing) sleepaway

  Jennifer Wiese of Brooklyn's Workroom Social runs a full sleepaway camp for adult sewists at a Catskills YMCA camp, pairing intensive apparel classes taught by internet-famous sewing instructors with hiking, ziplining, and cabin life.

  ActiveCreator-run$1,000 to $1,999

• Knit Camp (Dappled Fern Fibers)

  Minnesota · knitters' sleepaway retreat in rustic lakeside cabins

  Yarn shop Dappled Fern Fibers runs 'Knit Camp' out of rustic cabins on Devil Track Lake near Minnesota's Gunflint Trail, now in its fourth year and facilitated by owner and life coach Dorothy Broomall.

  ActiveVaries / not published

• NECCA Circus Intensives & Skills Weeks

  Vermont · circus

  The New England Center for Circus Arts runs week-long adult 'traincations' in its purpose-built Trapezium: pick a main focus like trapeze, aerial fabric, lyra, hand balancing, or wheel arts, then fill the rest of each day with other disciplines.

  Active$1,000 to $1,999

On hiatus, unverified, or no longer running

• Camp Winnarainbow Adult Camp

  California · circus and performing arts sleepaway

  Woodstock icon Wavy Gravy's circus and performing-arts camp in Mendocino County has run a legendary grown-ups' session for decades, teaching trapeze, stilt-walking, juggling, and clowning to adults sleeping in tipis on Black Oak Ranch.

  Hiatus

Missing a arts, crafts & performance camp? Suggest it.