The Marblehead High School Drama Club is in full swing into rehearsals for the upcoming spring musical, “The Prom.” The show debuts Friday, April 26, and plays through that weekend. The cast, crew and directors are working hard to put all the pieces together.
“The Prom” tells the story of four washed-up Broadway stars who are looking to repaint their image as celebrity activists. When they catch wind that the bigoted PTA of a small town in Indiana has canceled the high school prom, all because one girl wanted to take her girlfriend, they hop on the cause. In their misguided attempts, many mistakes are made and many lessons learned, but the prom comes together in the end.
“The message is what really comes through here,” director and MHS teacher Ashley Skeffington told the Current when asked what made this musical special.
“We have a really diverse group of students; many students are members of the LGBTQ+ community, many of them have friends and families who are members of the LGBTQ+ community; so there’s this real sense of urgency and importance that comes with telling a story about people that are still in many ways marginalized.”
When it initially debuted on Broadway, “The Prom” won a number of awards. It is full of elaborate dance numbers, so many rehearsals at MHS are dedicated to choreography under the direction of Ellory Jennings. Andrew Scoglio, head teacher of the music department at MHS, is in charge of music direction and coaching the actors in their singing performances, and Skeffington handles scene work and lighter choreography.
While the actors are hard at work, the crew is active behind the scenes. This past Saturday, the crew met to build sets using materials donated from Gilbert and Coles. The crew has plenty of unusual props to work on, including silly protest signs, rhythmic streamers and even cardboard cut-outs of characters. The opening scene of the show takes place in Sardi’s, a New York diner famously covered wall-to-wall with celebrity caricatures. To recreate this aesthetic, MHS senior and artist Rachael Albert has been commissioned to paint portraits of Drama Club seniors and a handful of MHS teachers.
Obviously, one of the most important parts of the show are the proms. And yes, there are multiple. In order to costume the ensembles of these scenes, the club is holding a dress drive in the MHS lobby. After the show, the community donations will be given to Becca’s Closet, a nonprofit that provides prom dresses for high schoolers in need.
Additionally, the Magic Hat has been a huge help in supplying costume items to the crew. Student costume designers Mollie Farber and Monica Pechhold have already been to the Magic Hat to collect donated items.
The Friends of the Performing Arts have been instrumental in getting resources to the crew, advertising the show and giving the cast unique opportunities. One of FoPA’s most recent activities has been placing purple lawn signs all over town to advertise the show and drum up excitement. When rehearsals were just beginning, FoPA organized a field trip for the cast and crew to a professional production of “The Prom” at the Palace Theater in Manchester, New Hampshire, where students had the chance to talk with the actors and ask questions.
As things are starting to come together and opening night is on the horizon, Skeffington expressed her hopes for this year’s show, especially coming off the coattails of last year’s successful production of “Legally Blonde.”
“I hope that despite ‘The Prom’ being maybe not as well-known, the humor and the love and the message really comes through,” she said.
Skeffington added that if the show makes a single person in the audience, who can relate to one of the musical’s characters, feel seen, she will consider it a success.
