The Prom

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             (If you are interested in seeing this show, know there may be very minor spoilers here.)
     On my recent trip to New York, I attended the Broadway musical The Prom. This show centered around a lesbian couple in Indiana who was banned by the PTA from attending their school's prom together. The plot consists of a couple of Broadway stars deciding to come to Indiana to change the ban. I really enjoyed this show because of the way it tackled homophobia, and made the homophobic characters see the faults in their reasoning.
     There has been a rise in inclusion and diversity in the media recently, and this show is one of the many examples. Having this huge Broadway show focus on a lesbian couple normlaizes the existence and validity of the LGBTQ community, and greater integrates it into our society. I bet one person saw this show and reexamined their own ideas about LGBT people.
     Broadways shows serve as a great platform to disperse ideas about current political and social issues. This type of influence spreads into TV shows and movies, and branches into social media. As I said in my last post, media can now reach a massive amount of people in a short amount of time.            But, the difference about Broadway and theatre is the fact that it has been around for quite some time. These new forms of social media are not as heavily engrained in our society as theatre is, so the changes happening within theatre show more of a fundamental change in mindset and beliefs.
     From the lesbian couple in The Prom to the extremely diverse and liberal cast of Hamilton, one can see the shift to inclusiveness happening within Broadway and theatre all over our country.
   

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