Emma Nolan lives in Edgewater, Indiana, a provincial town where she attends James Madison High School. She wants to take her girlfriend, Alyssa Greene, to the dance. Despite widespread recognition and acceptance of the Queer Community, parents and School Board members have forbidden this, and news has reached the media. Alyssa and Emma are subjected to scorn, mockery, and shade.
Meanwhile, Barry and Dee Dee have just suffered a traumatic blow to their egos. Their opening night performance of Eleanor (a musical about Eleanor Roosevelt) was skewered by the New York critics, and they’re in a panic. Brainstorming with their friends: Angi, Trent, and
(their agent) Sheldon, they come across Emma’s story of social injustice, and resolve to inject themselves into the predicament. They are deeply, truly moved for Emma, and sincerely hope the publicity will bolster their flatlining careers.
Their motives are not exactly altruistic, but they make a good faith effort. There are press conferences, decrees by the governor, town hall meetings, and scuffling attorneys. Trent, Sheldon, Dee Dee, Barry and Angi show up with protest signs, bull horns and vehement denunciations. Always when the paparazzi is there. It’s easy to see the grownups are advancing their own ideologies. They don’t want to be fair, they just want what they want. Emma is almost an afterthought.
Written and composed by Chad Beguelin, Bob Martin and Matthew Sklar, The Prom is a clever musical: insider theatre gags, solid jokes, a smattering of pathos, painful personal epiphanies, pleasant songs both gripping and light. Perhaps something of a mashup of It’s Only a Play and Inherit the Wind. The Prom takes what might have been intense and tumultuous, and being a comedy, doesn’t go there. It doesn’t dip everything in corn syrup either. It’s frank. It’s well-crafted. The good guys win and the surprising solution doesn’t go by the numbers. The LGBTQ Community (is painfully aware) we’re not yet out of the woods. That being said, The Prom will lift you up, and coax the sniffles. Seeing the teens (and their parents) in the audience, with relieved smiles and tears in their eyes. It was definitely worth the trip.
(They could use handsome valet or two.)
Uptown Players presents The Prom, playing July 12th-28th, 2024. Kalita Humphreys Theater. 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd, Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-219-2718. uptownplayers.org