Wonderfully Nerdy and Totally Average
“Then something
New happened
And turned my life around entirely
And that’s ‘cause
You happened
And look what happened to me
So go to prom with me, Kaylee!”
Yup! That is me heading to senior prom. That dress… I know!
I will never forget the way I was asked to the prom. It was a glorious evening in February. The year was two thousand and … (nope!). I had spent hours on AIM, under the the screen name Stardust88, chatting it up with my friends. I was just about to put up my sassy away message so I could finish my far too vulnerable Livejournal post, when HockEboy1 messaged me.
HockEboy1: Hi Prom? You wanna go? Stardust88:SureHockEboy1:Nice… and then we went to prom.
In modern times, asking someone to Prom has turned into a three act Disney musical full of every bell , whistle, genie and tap dance number you can imagine. The first time I heard the word promposal, I guffawed. But between the months of March and May, the promposal game amongst teens is strong. Theater kids take it to an entirely different level that is both horribly disruptive and awesomely clever. They bring the world of the totally average teenager right on to the stage.
Here are just a few of my most memorable promposal moments.
RENT: We were all sitting in the green room for a final note session. Putting up that show was emotionally exhausting. During tech week I was out of tears, out of fear, out of excitement and out of my mind. I was giving a very elaborate speech about how important the end of the show was and how all the energy had just died. “That cannot happen…” I had barely put the exclamation point on my sentence when the kid playing Mark stood up with a candle he had stolen from the prop table and an epic sign that said:
Sophie - Will you light my candle and go to prom with me?
Aww’s … screaming.... All ensued. Note session over.
CARRIE: This show revolves around Prom so I totally should have seen the madness coming. We were working on the scene where Tommy asks Carrie to the Prom. The scene was getting a little flat and I couldn’t quite figure out why. The girl playing Carrie asked if her and Tommy could switch roles. She thought maybe it would shake things up. Grasping at straws, I said sure. Surprisingly, it was really lovely and they were doing a wonderful job reacting to each other and playing off the changes they each made. And then…. The girl pulled an 8x10, folded piece of paper out of her back pocket that said “Prom?”. She handed it to him IN THE SCENE! He said yes because it’s IN THE SCENE! They stayed in character the entire time!
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND: It was the final performance of one of my top 10 favorite productions of all time. I had just finished giving all the senior speeches and my thank you’s to the administration. The poor audience had been sitting far longer than they should have. As I was wrapping up, one of the senior boys came up and asked me for the mic. Shocked and without thinking, I gave it to him (big mistake). Honestly, I thought he was going to thank me. He made a sweet but long speech about being a senior, and how that comes with certain responsibilities. One was playing the lead in the spring musical, and another was asking his girlfriend to prom. And then… he began to SING the song Some Girls from the show… acapella (and slightly off pitch) for an entire verse before he GOT DOWN ON ONE KNEE and asked his girlfriend to Prom in front of 200 people in a high school auditorium.
I know I am not the only theater teacher who has witnessed a thematic promposal in rehearsal or performance. I’ve seen youtube videos that involve flash mobs and entire chorus classes getting involved. While it is disruptive and still frankly very odd, there is a confidence in it I find … beautiful. I was asked to prom over AIM and some of these kids are doing it in front of entire audiences. These promposals are authentically and uniquely their own, boldly standing at the intersection of all their identities. They are pulling out all the stops to be both clever and vulnerable, emotional and rebellious, wonderfully nerdy and totally average all at the same time.
