Zombie Prom fun, misses some details

by Meghan D'Souza

ICCT - I attended Zombie Prom with an open mind and no expectations, because I was absolutely unsure of what to expect. The
summaries I found of the play did not make sense to me, so I closed the door to logic (the play does involve a zombie, after all) and opened up my imagination. I knew only that the play took place at a school in the 1950s and involved keeping the good girl, Toffee (Amanda Murray) from dating the school's bad boy, Jonny (Ben Lafayette). You'll notice he's so bad, he took the "h" out of his name, a running joke in the musical.

The musical starts in a whirlwind, quickly explaining how Toffee and Jonny fall madly in love. However, Toffee's parents do not approve and force her to break up with Jonny. Because Jonny has never had any sort of love in his life, he is so devastated that he commits suicide by jumping in a nearby nuclear waste dump. He is laid to rest at sea. Naturally, Toffee mourns his death while her school friends carry on with life. They try to get her to move on. "It's already been three weeks!" they sigh impatiently. They also want her to get excited with them about the upcoming prom. Even her super strict principal, Delilah Strict (Ellen Stevenson), encourages her to move on. "Black isn't a good color on you," she says of Toffee's outfit, a black cardigan and poodle skirt that dons a tombstone marked with RIP instead of a poodle. Mrs. Strict is, as her name implies, very keen on "Rules, Regulations and Respect," a name of one the musical's songs.

Toffee can't fight the feeling that Jonny may be dead, but he is not gone. Her feeling is justified when Jonny returns to school, only... he is a zombie. Her strong love for him brought him back to life. Mrs. Strict can't handle this for reasons that would ruin the musical if revealed here. While Jonny says he just wants to return to school, go to prom with Toffee and graduate, Mrs. Strict insists there is a paragraph in the school handbook that does not allow zombies. She threatens to cancel prom, the day all of the senior girls have lived for, if he shows up at the prom. And that is where I will end the summary. No spoilers for possible attendees.

I have to admit, I did not know how anyone was going to get a musical with a zombie together. I didn't know if it was going to be scary and funny? Were they going to need to use weird lights? How were they going to make this believable? One part that helped make it believable was when we in the audience discussed before the play that we had to put our Zombie Prom Hats on and just accept the musical for what it was. And when we watched, the characters just accepted that there was a zombie. There were jokes about loving what was left of his face. Toffee was grossed out to touch him at first and Murray did a great job of showing that Toffee loved him and got lost in the memories of who he was, then when she snapped out of it, her facial expressions did a good job of showing that she had been lost in what once was and that she wasn't quite ready to touch who he now is. She didn't overact it.

Murray carried the show well. She has a singing voice that she carries very well. It is simply angelic. She made even the most outrageous comedic lines sound logical and stayed completely in character. I found this a difficult play to grasp, but she figured her character out, dressed appropriately, from a blond wig that was styled in a 1950s way to her cardigans and poodle skirts, though all girls had atomic symbols instead of poodles on their skirts. Her dress for prom night was an appropriate 1950s tea-length dress.

Lafayette as Jonny without the "h" probably had the most difficult part. He had to play a troubled orphan who commits suicide in a nuclear waste and comes to life a new person, insisting on graduating from school, dating his one love, and fighting for his right to do so. This is all very complicated, because so many questions come to my mind that aren't answered in the musical and he is left to just create the character. We just have to accept that he is an orphan. I want to know how he made it to high school in the 1950s as an orphan. Did orphanages in the 1950s send teens to normal schools? Because they make it clear that he isn't living with family. How did he survive living in a coffin in the sea? I suppose it was Toffee's love. This is where the door to my logical mind needs to remain closed and accept imagination. Lafayette was dressed like John Travolta in Grease. He had his hair slicked on the sides, wore a leather jacket with "Jonny" written on the back, and paired that with jeans that were rolled up.

Stevenson as Mrs. Strict was dressed for the 1950s while she was in the school setting, but when prom night came, she had a very inappropriate dress on, not only for the time period, but for such a strict principal. Her back and chest were revealed in a satin dress, with a brooch sitting right in the middle of her cleavage. The girls wore much more appropriate 1950s attire for the dance, including gloves, pearls, tea-length dresses with A-line skirts, all with high necklines that defined the fashion of the 1950s. For someone who was defined by "Rules, Regulations and Respect" and for a scene where she is demanding students to follow strict guidelines, Mrs. Strict really ought to have worn a more typical 1950s dress for an adult woman. I was imagining something more like a boatneck with sleeves, gloves, and the A-frame skirt.

Christopher Carpenter played an excellent supporting role as Eddie Flagrante, an editor and reporter for Expose magazine and former fling of Mrs. Strict. From his attire to his acting, he was believable. He brought out a believable side of Stevenson in a shared scene that was truly funny. During this scene, he appeared to flub his lines, but, like the best of the best actors, he went with it, without breaking character. Not even a laugh. I figured out the flub from hidden smiles and the nonsensical babble that he said before he, as his character, said, 'I don't even know what I'm saying!' (This paraphrased line flowed just right with what he was saying at the moment). He didn't miss a beat. Throughout the show, he was believable as the reporter who wanted to get the dirt about this zombie and spread the word around. He showed a passion that still burned for Mrs. Strict and delivered his lines very well. He was great comic relief.

A favorite character for many was Toffee's friend Candy (Elizabeth Breed). She was bubbly and all about being a senior in high school. Her hair and outfit, again, a poodle skirt with an atomic symbol taking the place of the poodle, was on par. She stayed in character the whole way through. She played two other small roles and embraced those, as well. As Candy, she was obsessed to a fault with biting her nails and prom. Her voice, her facial expressions, her comedic timing and her enthusiasm made her shine.

A great show relies on details. There was just an imbalance of details in this show. On the one hand, the actors would be great at staying in character while they were in the background. A great detail. On the other hand, one of the gentleman, Joey played by Andrew Fortman, didn't have '50s hair while each girl wore wigs that were styled just right. He wore the black shirt, the rolled up jeans, and his hair was very 2009. Just a little gel and a part on the side would fix that. The set consisted of yellow stairs, pink walls with green lockers painted on them and a purple desk sitting on the platform. It was a sight I could have done without, but managed to ignore when the actors sang and danced in front of it for most of the show. Because the characters were dressed so brightly, a neutral school design would have been fine. Plus, with all of that work done for this show, they used lots of imaginery props that could have added a little to the show. Mirrors to check themselves for make up. Plastic cups to drink from during prom. Small details like that really add up in the end.

I just mentioned dancing. There was a lot of "shout outs" in the form of dancing to Michael Jackson in the form of Thriller moves. Unfortunately, this was another spot where it often looked like half of the cast wasn't quite prepared.

The good news is, the cast was having fun and the audience felt it. I went in not knowing what I was going to see and if I was going to understand it. I did. I laughed at the right spots. My only thought was that details count. A costume doesn't make the character. Voice infliction, facial expression, confidence when you dance, time-appropriate hair and clothing. If everyone is on the same page with the details for the whole two hours, the show is raised up a notch.


Meghan D'Souza lives in Coralville with her husband and beloved dog. She is a University of Iowa graduate and works at the Iowa City Public Library. She has written for The Burlington Hawk Eye and is currently a freelance writer.