Lyric Theatre is staging Oklahoma premiere of the LGBTQ+ musical 'The Prom': What to know

Brandy McDonnell, Oklahoman
Updated ·6 min read

High school proms are known for conjuring up a wide range of emotions, from joyous and heartfelt to messy and overdone to awkward and even painful.

Lyric Theatre's opening-night performance of its Oklahoma premiere production of "The Prom" managed to run that full gamut of feelings, with plenty of sequins and sparkles to dress it all up, too.

Directed by Lyric Producing Artistic Director Michael Baron, the Tony Award-nominated new musical "The Prom" is the second show on the long-running professional theater's summer season at Civic Center Music Hall.

The Oklahoma City nonprofit arts organization, which is in the midst of its 60th anniversary season, is performing the show through July 16 in downtown OKC. 

Here's what you need to know about Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom":

From left, Jerry Jay Cranford, who plays Barry Glickman, and Lindsie VanWinkle-Guthrie, who stars as Dee Dee Allen, perform with the cast of Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom."
From left, Jerry Jay Cranford, who plays Barry Glickman, and Lindsie VanWinkle-Guthrie, who stars as Dee Dee Allen, perform with the cast of Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom."

What is 'The Prom' about?

Based on an original concept by Jack Viertel, the boisterous show follows four past-their-prime Broadway stars who travel to Indiana to insert themselves into a small-town controversy making national headlines: a lesbian student's fight for the right to bring her girlfriend to her high school prom.   

With its book by Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin, lyrics by Beguelin and music by Matthew Sklar, the show is loosely based on several real-life news stories about gay teenagers who were barred from bringing their same-sex dates to their proms. 

"The Prom" debuted on Broadway in fall 2018 and closed the following summer after playing 23 previews and 310 regular performances.

It was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including best musical. The production didn’t win any Tonys, but it was named outstanding musical at the Drama Desk Awards. 

Emmy-winning director Ryan Murphy ("Glee") adapted the musical into a star-studded 2020 Netflix movie featuring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Kerry Washington, James Corden, Ariana DeBose, Keegan-Michael Key, Jo Ellen Pellman and Tulsa native Mary Kay Place.  

From left, Lexi Windsor plays Angie and Emilee Stubbs stars as Emma in Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom."
From left, Lexi Windsor plays Angie and Emilee Stubbs stars as Emma in Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom."

Who is starring in Lyric Theatre's Oklahoma premiere production of 'The Prom'?

Since the national tour of "The Prom" skipped the Sooner State, Lyric Theatre's production marks the Oklahoma premiere of the new show.

Lindsie VanWinkle-Guthrie, who previously starred in Lyric's productions of "Carousel" and "Mary Poppins," plays Dee Dee Allen, an aging two-time Tony-winning stage diva. She and her longtime Broadway pal Barry Glickman (the charming Jerry Jay Cranford) are dismayed when their biographical musical "Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical" closes on opening night due to sluggish sales and savage reviews that rightly call out the pair as unlikable narcissists.

So, Dee Dee and Barry team up with fellow performers Trent Oliver (Nicholas Rodriguez), a Juilliard grad who longs to be a serious thespian but is mostly remembered for his role on an old sitcom, and Angie Dickinson (talented Lyric mainstay Lexi Windsor), a longtime chorus girl who has been stuck in the background of the musical "Chicago" for 20 years, to come up with a celebrity cause to help them rehab their self-absorbed image.

Without spotting the irony, they scour Twitter in search of a "safe, non-violent, high-profile, low-risk injustice" that they can essentially exploit to prove they aren't self-centered jerks. They find their cause célèbre when they read about Emma Nolan (the wonderful Emilee Stubbs in her Lyric debut), a LGBTQ+ teenager in Edgewater, Indiana, who unintentionally created a furor by asking another girl to be her prom date.

Led by strident control freak Mrs. Greene (Gina Valentine Byrum), the local PTA opted to cancel prom rather than accommodate Emma and her still-closeted secret girlfriend. The cancellation of their teenage rite of passage hasn't endeared Emma to her classmates.

The four Broadway performers declare that “We’re gonna help that little lesbian / Whether she likes it or not!," hitch a bus ride with Trent's non-Equity tour of "Godspell" and head for the Heartland, with Dee Dee's long-suffering publicist Sheldon (Sheldon Mba) in tow.

The show-biz quintet makes a poorly timed entrance in Edgewater, bursting into a meeting at the school carrying glittery protest signs and derailing the progress Emma and empathetic school principal Mr. Hawkins (Ashton Byrum) were making in convincing the PTA and student body to consider her perspective and reinstate the prom.

Although she is initially aghast at all the attention and befuddled by her misguided Broadway allies, the isolated Emma eventually embraces their help.

From left, Saoirse Ryhn plays Alyssa Greene and Emilee Stubbs stars as Emma in Lyric Theatre's Oklahoma premiere production of "The Prom," playing July 11-16 at Civic Center Music Hall.
From left, Saoirse Ryhn plays Alyssa Greene and Emilee Stubbs stars as Emma in Lyric Theatre's Oklahoma premiere production of "The Prom," playing July 11-16 at Civic Center Music Hall.

How are 'The Prom' songs and story?

As befits a show called "The Prom," the musical boasts a fun-loving, big-hearted vibe. The bouncy choreography by Amy Reynolds Reed and the nonstop energy from the teenage performers keep the bedazzled song-and-dance spectacle appropriately boisterous. The songs are consistently tuneful and expertly sung.

But staying up with the show's abrupt tonal shifts can be as challenging as tracking an adolescent's mood swings. The broadly comedic numbers like "It's Not About Me," "The Acceptance Song" and "Zazz" are undeniably funny, but, like pairing a sequined gown with Birkenstock sandals, they don't really match Emma's heartfelt, vulnerable ballads "Just Breathe," "Dance With You" and "Unruly Heart."

For a new show, many of "The Prom" plot points seem a little too familiar, so it's hardly a surprise to learn that Emma's secret girlfriend is none other Alyssa Greene (Saoirse Ryhn), the anxious daughter of the screeching Mrs. Greene. But her eponymous ode "Alyssa Greene" is one of the show's understated highlights, with lyrics that capture the angst of life as a teenage overachiever struggling to live up to sky-high expectations.

The cast of Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom" performs at Civic Center Music Hall.
The cast of Lyric Theatre's production of "The Prom" performs at Civic Center Music Hall.

How did Lyric Theatre's opening-night performance of 'The Prom' go?

The cast and crew of Lyric's "The Prom" took the old theater mantra "the show must go on" to heart during the July 11 opening-night performance, overcoming numerous setbacks on the way to the final bows.

Along with more typical opening-night concerns like a few flubbed lines and staticky microphones, the show had to take an unscheduled almost 20-minute intermission in the first act after Cranford injured his leg. The actor, who has appeared in Lyric shows like "Big River," Grease" and "The Wizard of Oz," returned to the stage in a wheelchair, finished the performance and is carrying on with his crowd-pleasing role for the run of the show.

In Act 2, Stubbs and Ryhn fell during the closing number, "It's Time to Dance," but immediately got up, apparently unharmed, and kept right on dancing.

Kudos to the opening-night performers for not letting a series of mishaps keep them from making it to the last dance of "The Prom."

LYRIC THEATRE'S 'THE PROM' 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Lyric Theatre gives the LGBTQ+ show 'The Prom' an Oklahoma premiere