Daily Herald opinion: Hesitance over high school musical offers a commentary on our times

In the opening number of the Netflix version of the Tony-nominated musical "The Prom," character Barry Glickman sings a line that is rife with irony as he describes his celebrated acting performances.

"I make audiences feel my pain," he sings, "and if they don't leave depressed, then I've not done my job."

As the musical proceeds, we learn that Glickman has a lot of pain and understandable reasons for it. But when, as the play closes - not unpredictably for Broadway/Hollywood, amid glitter, glamour, smiles and dancing - Glickman's acting colleague and co-conspirator Dee Dee Allen bubbles "This is what not failing feels like," he's able to respond with a simple line that is filled with hope that the "The Prom's" real-life audience won't leave depressed. "Yeah," he beams. "Pretty good, huh?"

It's a feel-good experience that in general would seem like an ideal theme for a high-school performance, especially since it deals primarily with high school students and is based on real events (though events that don't get wrapped up nearly so neatly and harmoniously in the end).

But there are two difficult sticking points.

One is that this is 2023 and somewhere along the way in the past 15 years or so we've lost the ability to talk to each other civilly about difficult subjects. And the second is that the topic around which all the angst and joyous resolution in "The Prom" revolves is LGBTQ+, oddly still a very difficult subject deep into the 21st century.

In another time, past and hopefully future, such a play could be an appropriate starting point for an active discussion - among teenagers as well as adults. But in 2023, again ironically given the success not only of this play but of popular TV shows like "Glee," "Modern Family" and many more, this is the kind of topic that gave the superintendent of Community Unit District 300 enough pause to postpone a planned production of it at Hampshire High School.

Susan Harkin can hardly be condemned for her hesitation. She noted hate-filled emails following a "Day of Silence" protesting harassment of LGBTQ+ people in schools and threats related to an LGBTQ+ meeting held in the district. And we've all seen the threats and abuse heaped on library and school officials related to controversial programs, not to forget actual harm related to events in the news, including gunshots, pepper spray and even murder.

So, Harkin's concern is all too understandable. But at a school board meeting Tuesday night, a contingent of 25 parents, students and staff urged her to reconsider, insisting that the inclusive message of "The Prom" deserves to be heard and the community is, in the words of Hampshire Village President Mike Reid, "kind, welcoming, understanding and unique" enough to deal with it positively.

Such responses are reassuring to see and hear in these times. Still, we can't help harking back 31 years to Rodney King's famous plea amid violent protests of his beating by police.

"I just want to say," he began, "you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?"

A high school play is not a police beating, to be sure. But King's words are certainly fitting today, and, who knows?, maybe an upbeat musical like "The Prom" can help us get closer to them.