There are two things I love above all else music(al theatre) and literature. When they are combined? I will probably burst out into a musical number. I'm all sparkly prom dresses and songs right now just thinking about The Prom. My review will follow later this week, but until then--I'm so ecstatic to be participating in the blog tour. And, as a side note, to those who are concerned: the finished copy does NOT change any of the characters sexuality--I know this was a concern earlier on via the ARC!


An honest, laugh-out-loud, feel-good novel inspired by the hit Broadway musical The Prom--a New York Times Critic's Pick!

Seventeen-year-old Emma Nolan wants only one thing before she graduates: to dance with her girlfriend at the senior prom. But in her small town of Edgewater, Indiana, that's like asking for the moon.

Alyssa Greene is her high school's "it" girl: popular, head of the student council, and daughter of the PTA president. She also has a secret. She's been dating Emma for the last year and a half.

When word gets out that Emma plans to bring a girl as her date, it stirs a community-wide uproar that spirals out of control. Now, the PTA, led by Alyssa's mother, is threatening to cancel the prom altogether.

Enter Barry Glickman and Dee Dee Allen, two Broadway stars who decide to take up the cause and get a little publicity along the way. But when they arrive in Indiana to fight on Emma's behalf, their good intentions go quickly south.

Between Emma facing the fray head-on, Alyssa wavering about coming out, and Barry and Dee Dee basking in all the attention, it's the perfect prom storm. Only when this unlikely group comes together do they realize that love is always worth fighting for.



The more obvious choice would have been to do something with a few more nods to the stage. Ordinarily, I'd have worked a little more of that into the presence of my journaling. Adding some doodles to one of my photos was more of a last minute thing. There's a specific scene in the novel where Alyssa and Emma's pinkies are linked, and it just felt like a crime to not include a doodle representing that. 
 
It's always a good idea to take your books out for a walk. I specifically picked the county fairgrounds in my hometown for the backdrop for part two of my photo journal. When I think of my teenage years, I think of various spots in my hometown. This is one of them. It represents that feeling of being young and in love and alive in a small town. The Prom is set in my home state and in a city that is not wholly unlike where I grew up. Unfortunately for me, the weekend in which my copy of The Prom was delivered was gloomy and full of that rain that signals to us that autumn is on its way--everything is dark and shadowy. 

Because of this, I wanted to add pops of colour to some of these photos with the sort of doodles one might scribble in their notebooks during the school year. Given the bleakness of the day, and the story's more angst-filled parts, I wanted to add that splash of colour. Alyssa and Emma, after all, add a little more colour to each others lives. And, of course, once I got started I decided to include one lyric from the musical into the mix for good measure. It just felt right. The rest, as they say, is history.




I feel like the general aesthetic for The Prom is fairly simple. There's this vividness to your first love, you know? Although Emma and Alyssa have their fair share of obstacles and angst throughout the course of both the novel and the show, they are still in screaming colour when they are together. At the end of the day, all they want to do is just be together. Everything else--Indiana, the Broadway Stars that help them light the way, their school, classmates, everything--is just background noise. 


While I love both Emma and Alyssa, Emma is the character that I felt closest to. She has a big heart and a creative soul. She was sort of thrown out of the closet and then out of her home, and while that sting is still very much so present, she keeps on keeping on. I admired that about her. When it comes to her mood board, I saw her simplistic style pour through, I wanted her creativity, too, to shine. 



Alyssa was a bit more difficult to portray. I feel like she has the potential to grow so much more beyond the Perfect Daughter that she feels she has to be. Still, there's this sense to her aura that she'd be very pastel and soft. She is a determined young woman who gives off the air of someone who could totally take on anyone. We see her strength as she is able to grow into herself and stand up for who she is.



Saundra Mitchell is the author of over twenty books for tweens and teens. Her work includes two anthologies for teens, Defy the Dark and All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages. For twenty years, she was the head screenwriter and an executive producer with Dreaming Tree Films on their various teen filmmaking programs and earned Academy Award eligibility ten times during her tenure. In her free time, she enjoys fandom, studying history, crochet, and spending time with her wife and her daughters. Her pronouns are Any/Any.  

Connect with Saundra Mitchell: Website, Goodreads, Instagram and Twitter 

Matthew Sklar is a Tony® and Emmy® Award nominated composer. His works include the Broadway musicals: Elf, The Wedding Singer and The Prom. Chad Beguelin is a four-time Tony® Nominee whose works include the Broadway musicals: Aladdin, Elf, The Wedding Singer and, of course, The Prom. Bob Martin is a writer, performer, and producer of many celebrated musicals and television shows. The Prom is his third work on Broadway following the hit shows Elf and The Drowsy Chaperone, for which he earned a Tony Award.