Drama Club is a 2021 Nickelodeon Kid Com series. The series is presented mockumentary-style, and is about the kids in the Drama Club at Tookus Middle School trying to gain attention and relevance in a school that's obsessed with the football team. The series focuses on Mack (Telci Huyn), the eager new student director, her goofy but loyal best friend Darcy (Lili Brennan), the excitable and plucky Skip (Artyon Celestine), the pretentious actor Oliver (Nathan Janak), and the vain and social-media obsessed Bianca (Kensington Tallman). The dim-witted football jock Bench (Chase Vacnin) later joins the club as the dance captain.
The series is the first spinoff of the 2019 All That revival (and 7th spinoff overall) to feature an All That cast member, with Nathan Janak as part of the main cast. The series ran for only one season.
This series contains the following tropes.
- Alliterative Name: Oliver Olivier; sometimes Oliver goes by Full-Name Basis.
- Aside Glance: Like a true mockumentary/faux documentary, several characters will look into the camera after something strange happens.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Friendship-wise, Darcy can be this to Mack. They're best friends, but Darcy can be overbearing with her concern for Mack.
- Drama Club: Natch, as this is a series about a drama club.
- Dumb Jock: Bench fits this trope to a T, though he is also a Lovable Jock as he is simple and sweet.
- The whole football team is this trope, they're stereotypical dumb jocks but none of them seem malicious, even towards the drama club.
- Faux Documentary: While presented like a mockumentary complete with interviews and shaky cam, there doesn't appear to be a camera crew actually following the kids.
- Freudian Excuse: Principal Gibbons is overly hostile to the drama club because as a kid, he was into the performing arts and tried out for drama club 26 times, only to finally get in and be cast as a toad. He's vowed revenge against the drama club ever since.
- Genki Guy: Skip, who is energetic and cheerful.
- Goth: Gertie is a Gloomy Goth type, dresses in black and has a world-weary disposition.
- Hidden Depths:
- Bench is also a great ballet dancer, which is Truth in Television as ballet is very beneficial for football players and other athletes to help with balance and movement
. - Principal Gibbons actually has a love of musicals and theatre and was a part of the drama club when he was in middle school.
- Gertie is very perceptive and seems to have a way of getting people to open up to her (she helps Bianca and Oliver realize that they're actually best friends, and even helps football coach assistant Johann open up about hidden depths of his own). On top of that, she has a surprisingly talented musician (her number in the musical.
- Bench is also a great ballet dancer, which is Truth in Television as ballet is very beneficial for football players and other athletes to help with balance and movement
- Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Mr. Clyde Sniffet (played by John Milhiser) is the drama club advisor and has been going through this, making TikTok videos, using slang, and trying to be "down" with his students. The drama club is embarrassed by him, most of the time.
- No Social Skills: Darcy, who is Endearingly Dorky and confident, but is sheltered and not aware of how awkward she comes across to her peers. Even her best friend Mack is somewhat embarrassed by her.
- Performance Artist: Oliver, who treats his acting very seriously and is flamboyant and showy.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Bianca is glued to her phone at all times to communicate to her followers and check her follower count. "Phoneless in Tookus" is an entire episode about this.
- Popularity Food Chain: The drama club is definitely at the bottom at Tookus Middle School, to the point where the kids don't get any respect from faculty as well as the students. Principal Gibbons actually wanted to end the drama club due to thinking it was a waste of time, though he has his own agenda in wanting to end it.
- Recycled Premise: The show is basically Nickelodeon's take on Disney+'s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, except Drama Club is more of a straight comedy and the zaniness is cranked up to eleven.
- Shout-Out: The words Skip uses in voicing his nervousness about his one line in the play reference Eminem's "Lose Yourself".
- Those Two Guys: Skip and Bench
- Too Much Alike: Oliver and Bianca had a mutual dislike of one another, despite the both of them being vainglorious and self-absorbed.
- Vitriolic Best Friends: Oliver and Bianca seem to be heading for this, especially after S.A.D.. They finally come to terms with this in "Stress Rehearsal".
