There could have been an interesting play here about do-gooder types who get off more on their moral outrage than on actual solutions and more about fighting for a cause rather than caring about the real individuals affected by an issue. I’m sure these types exist on the right just as much as the ones I see on left in my FB feed- people who seemingly sit around all day, scouring every local news affiliate’s website, looking for a story to share that will surely rile up all their friends and the injustices going in Florida or Kentucky or Nebraska.
There could be a great story to tell of how a bunch of well-intentioned New York liberals, yelling to each other inside their echo chamber, descend on a small Indiana town and are just are judgmental and unwilling to listen as the bigots they have come to save.
Of course they’re ultimately on the side of good, but a much more nuanced approach of listening to the parents, the community, etc and trying to build some genuine understanding would be far more effective, both for the characters AND the audience.
By splitting the focus between this and the boilerplate Mean Girls/Evan Hansen/13 story we get with the high school kids in Indiana. The show is in many ways reminiscent of 13. That also features a New Yorker transplanted to a backwards Indiana town and dealt with the pressure me of high school. 13 featured no adult actors (or characters), but The Prom basically relegates its young actors to B and C plots while the Broadway vets sing about Zazz and loving thy neighbor.
All that said, it’s written with such an over the top campy gay sensibility that it’s hard not to gawk and be entertained by the whole thing. The Prom takes that exchange from Ghostworld (This is so bad it’s good/This is bad it’s gone past good and back to bad again) one step further- it’s is one a perpetual spinner of good/bad, paradoxically being both forever at the same time.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
