The only thing missing from the money reviews was the money.
Critics greeted “The Prom” with cheers when it opened in November at the Longacre Theatre. In the Times, Jesse Green called it, “a joyful hoot.” An upbeat tale of a mid-western girl who just wants to be able to take her girlfriend to the high school prom, and the quartet of vain but good-hearted Broadway interlopers who take on her cause was tailor-made for the social moment: “With its kinetic dancing, broad mugging and belty anthems,” Green wrote, “it makes you believe in musical comedy again.” And socially meaningful to boot: “Moving so fast you can hardly see the cracks in the road, it consistently delivers on its entertainment promises as well as its Golden Age premise: that musicals, however zazzy, can address the deepest issues dividing us.”
