Posted: 11/6/18 at 6:16am
I would have preferred if the show recognized that smaller towns in America today, even primarily conservative ones (I work in one, and most of my co-workers live in that town or an adjacent small town), are part of today's world-- they are well aware that there are gay children in their midst, even if some of the parents and administrators (and press, evidently) are uncomfortable with that; and those gay kids usually find each other, in their own high schools or in adjacent ones. At least in the version of the show I saw, Social media was used selectively and when it was convenient, but it really defines how high school kids live (I've raised several) and how parents and high school admins 'make the rules'. I won't go into spoiler-ish details, but THE PROM suffers at times from a plausibility issue around how it handles this. We'll see...I want it to be successful and I believe no matter how it is received on Broadway it will have a life in colleges and high schools because it looks like so much fun to produce (it's stronger, say, than THE WEDDING SINGER, which gets produced all the time these days!)