Review: SNS' THE PROM at Garden Theater

Broadway Musicals are often fantasies, musical representations about things that could not possibly happen. The saddest thing about Short North Stage’s production of THE PROM, which runs from March 14 through April 7 at the Garden Theater (1187 North High Street in downtown Columbus), is that it is based partly in truth.

THE PROM, the winner of the 2019 Drama Desk Award for Best Musical, is the story of Emma Nolan (Britta Rae), a lesbian high school student who wanted to bring her girlfriend Alyssa Greene (Jataria Heyward) to her prom, but the school’s PTA shut down the event rather than make it inclusive.

“I thought that when my parents rejected me and stopped loving me (after coming out) that I would never feel any worse,” Nolan says. “And now this. And I feel worse.”

If it seems like a problem that only exists in a Broadway musical, think again. The catalyst for the musical occurred in 2010 when Constance McMillen was forbidden to bring her girlfriend to the Itawamba County (Miss.) Agricultural High School prom. The setting was changed to rural Indiana to take pot shots at former Vice President Mike Pence, but many of the show’s plot points including the conservative parents organizing a secret “safe” prom, happened.

However, THE PROM will never be confused as a documentary. A large chunk of the show about four Broadway actors surviving the barren wasteland of Applebee’s and Super 8 motels is purely hilarious invention.

After their show “ELEANOR! The ELEANOR ROOSEVELT MUSICAL!” flops, overbearing actress Dee Dee Allen (Heather Patterson King) and actor Barry Glickman (Robert Anthony Jones) team up with slimy agent Sheldon Saperstein (Luke Bovenizer), dancer Angie Dickinson (Heidi Kok) and Julliard graduate Trent Oliver (Nick Hardin) to find a cause célèbres to reinvent themselves. After dismissing the issues of poverty (“too big”), world hunger (see poverty excuse) and the electoral college (too confusing), the four find an article about Nolan and the embattled Indiana prom.

“It checks all the boxes, and as a bonus it’s gay, which is something I can relate to,” Glickman exclaims. “We are going to be the biggest thing to happen in Indiana since... whatever’s happened in Indiana!”

One could think the idea of four Broadway actors arriving to save the day in a Broadway musical might seem a little self-aggrandizing. However, the over-the-top antics of these self-important thespians are quite the opposite.

King and Jones portrayal of Allen and Glickman’s over-the-top egos poke fun of the Hollywood/Broadway superheroes out to save the world. In Indiana, the two learn no one cares who they are in New York. When she is trying to get a suite in a motel, Allen removes a pair of Tony trophies from her purse to impress the clerk (Nicholas Wilson). Glickman follows suit, removing a Drama Desk award, to which the clerk responds, “What is that?”

Similarly, Dickinson tries to reassure a shaken Nolan with a long-winded story about Bob Fosse and CHICAGO that is supposed to be inspirational. When Nolan says her hands are still shaking, Dickinson says “Just turn ‘em to jazz hands.”

The only one to get through to the Indianians is Oliver. When students tell him their Christian beliefs will not allow them to interact with someone who is gay, he responds, “I have played Jesus Christ on three separate occasions ... I got to know J.C. very well.” Oliver’s song “Love Thy Neighbor,” one of the funniest tunes in the show, then skewers their beliefs with zingers like, “Kaylee has a small tattoo/That tattoo would be taboo/Kaylee guess what waits for you? /An eternity in the fiery pits of hell.”

The four battles against PTA president Mrs. Greene (Linda Kinnison Roth), who is unaware that her daughter is gay, and Jen Robinson, but soon find an ally in the school principal Mr. Hawkins (Torrey Linder), a secret Broadway fan.

While the Broadway quartet provides the laugh track for THE PROM, it is Britta Rae that gives the show its heart. As Nolan, Rae, who also played Carole King in BEAUTIFUL, aches for the love of her life as much as she wants to escape the school’s white hot spotlight. The show’s emotional crest, “Unruly Heart” does what it is supposed to do: draw together the warring factions of the show. Nolan composes a song and delivers the message to over six million listeners via the internet and in creative staging by Fyrebird Media/Ryan Shreve, other teens show Nolan their support via video screens.

The unsung heroes of the show are a stellar ensemble. Co-directors and choreographers Edward Carignan and Dionysia Williams Velazco were able to create a feeling of a high school prom because many of the actors, Ava Baker, Anna Cook, Lizzie Huelskamp, Logan Melick, Jakob Robinson, Lucy Robinson, and Emma Wintersteller, are still in high school or recently graduated. The other “students” including Luciano Castaldo, Lisa Glover, Conner Triplett, and Sydney Webb, could pass for high school students.

Perhaps someday in a not-too-distant future, people will look at THE PROM as a period piece about prejudice, like HAIRSPRAY, and not as someone’s reality. And the whole idea of a non-inclusive prom will seem as ridiculous as Cher starring in a glamorous musical about Eleanor Roosevelt.

Photo Credits: Ryan Shreve/Fyrebird Media

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