The Owen Sound Little Theatre debuts its production of The Prom this week.
The comedy musical starts with four fading Broadway stars who are looking for a way to draw attention back to themselves, when they hear of a small town in Indiana trying to stop a pair of teen girls from attending their high school prom as a couple.
The actors think that if they can bring light to the issue, they can ride that publicity back to notoriety.
The show is directed by Corry Lapointe, who has also worked on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Sister Act, The Miracle Worker, Calendar Girls, and The Donnelleys.
Lapointe says that The Prom is a story about love, acceptance, and inclusion.
“I can promise you that you will feel good,” she laughed in an interview with Bayshore News. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful story, but filled with humour, lots of song, lots of dance, and at the heart of it all is a love story.”
She says that she wanted to work on this production after seeing both the Netflix movie version, which she wasn’t a fan of because of too many big names, and a live stage production, which she enjoyed and wanted to make her how, particularly because she enjoyed the script.
She adds that a good script is key when trying to sell humour.
“This is a beautiful story told honestly. Not preachy, nothing like that – just allowing us to think again about what we think, or what we’ve grown up with. It just reveals to us [that] love is love.”
When Roxy Theatre put out a call for auditions, 40 people showed up, which allowed all of the roles to be filled.
Lapointe said she’s especially happy with the turnout, because the production ended up welcoming a lot of new faces.
“There’s a lot of new faces on the stage among the adults, faces we haven’t seen ever before on the Roxy [stage],” she said. “And others we haven’t seen very often or certainly not in major roles. To me, that’s what community theatre is all about.”
A big turnout was also a relief, because she was especially concerned with having enough teens to fill the roles of the highschoolers.
“There are lots of teenagers in the cast, and I really wanted to make sure that teenagers played the teenagers, and they do,” she said. “All of the teen parts are played by teenagers, and they’re so talented, and so fun, and open and I just enjoyed that very, very much.”
After four months of learning songs, rehearsals, and behind-the-scenes work, the cast and crew of The Prom is ready to hit the stage.
“This is a big commitment because the kids are going to school, the adults are going to their day jobs, but we come out and we come out because we love it. We just love live theatre. We love the stories live theatre can tell like no other medium, and that’s why we do it.”
The Prom kicks off the 2024-2025 season for the Roxy Theatre and Owen Sound Little Theatre.
It runs November 14-16, 21-23, and 27-30 at 7:30 pm and November 24 at 2 pm. Tickets are available through roxytheatre.ca or by calling 519-371-2833.