INTERVIEW: Christopher Sieber has been going to ‘The Prom’ for years
Photo: The Prom stars Christopher Sieber as Trent Oliver. Here, he’s joined by the company of the show. Photo courtesy of Deen van Meer / Provided by Polk and Co. with permission.
Normally attending one’s high school prom is a special memory that lives on into adulthood. Broadway actor Christopher Sieber is in the unique position of attending the same prom party year after year after year, and he couldn’t be happier.
Sieber is one of the main stars of the new Broadway musical, The Prom, which has recently been nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It’s currently playing an open-ended run at the Longacre Theatre.
In the show, a group of Broadway performers has been rejected by critics and audiences, and they need something to spark their careers and get them back in the headlines. They decide to help a teenager who is facing discrimination in her hometown: She is a lesbian who is unable to bring her girlfriend to the local prom.
The Broadway actors, each a bit self-centered but still loving, travel to this Midwestern town and try to save the day. What ensues is both hilarious and touching.
Sieber, who has appeared on Broadway in Matilda, Pippin and Shrek, plays Trent Oliver, a character who has some insecurity issues about his acting. He is joined on stage by Brooks Ashmanskas, Beth Leavel and Angie Schworer. Each night they bring to life the creative work of director Casey Nicholaw, writers Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, and composer Matthew Sklar.
“It was kind of one of these rare things that happen,” Sieber said in a recent phone interview. “Casey Nicholaw, who I’ve known forever — we had done Spamalot; we did Thoroughly Modern Millie together — and we’re walking down the street. We happened to run into each other, and he said, ‘Oh my gosh, I have something for you.’ I said, ‘OK, great.'”
Nicholaw called Sieber two weeks later and said there was a musical idea they were working on and would he be available to sit in for a reading. The actor agreed, and that’s when he sat down with Ashmanskas, Leavel and Schworer. The team was together for the first time, and little did they know, they would be together for years.
“[We] sat down at a table with Casey Nicholaw at his studio with Bob Martin, Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar, all of whom I’ve known forever, and we read this script cold,” Sieber said. “We didn’t know what it was. They didn’t know what it was, but it was an idea. And it turned into The Prom. That never happens where your very creative friends say, ‘Hey, hey, come and be a part of something that we don’t know what it is yet.’ They wrote the whole play with us in mind, which doesn’t happen, and then it all spoke to us. When it’s written with you in mind, it’s kind of easy to play the part. It just turned into what it is now. It was incredible. We stayed with it, and we actually sacrificed a lot. We turned down jobs. We went out to Atlanta, and we finally made it to Broadway.”
Sieber called the musical an original idea (such a rarity on Broadway nowadays!), but it’s based on true stories throughout the United States. Gay and lesbian couples being denied the chance to celebrate at their prom is unfortunately a common occurrence.
“The message was still strong on it,” he said. “It was funny because when we first started doing that, [being] gay and lesbian that was still a hot-button issue because DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, was still there. That’s how long ago we started, and then we were like, OK, we’re kind of timely right now. And then the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by the Obama administration, and then it was like, oh, we kind of missed the bus here. Are we a hot topic now? Are we a timely thing? Kind of not. We thought at one point, oh, yeah, we missed the moment, and then of course the presidential campaign of Donald Trump happened. And then we became extremely timely, and we remain so, which is kind of a strange blessing, I suppose. The message has always been there, and that was something that we all of course were very keen to.”
The show also pokes fun at the Broadway community. Each of the four principal characters needs to go through a change of heart. Why are they trying to help Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen)? Is it because they want to change this community for the better, or is it because they want to improve their careers and play the savior part?
“Beth Leavel says that Dee Dee Allen to her is like her evil twin,” Sieber said. “Trent Oliver is harder to play than it looks. I think it’s one of the hardest parts I’ve ever had to play because I guess I specialize in broad characters, and I get to go behind a lot of makeup and prosthetics and crazy costumes and fat suits and everything. [Trent is] so exposed, and he’s a real person. Some of it is based on me. Chad and Bob would write something, and it would be really funny. But then you kind of hear the words coming out of your mouth, and you look at them and go, ‘Hey, come on. Are they making fun of me?’ They were so gracious with us throughout the whole process where we got to contribute and collaborate with them.”
He added: “It was really fun to improvise. We did a lot of improvising, and it ended up in the script. And I based Trent on a few people that I worked in the past, and I hope that if they see it, they don’t go, ‘Hey.’”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Prom is currently playing the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s other interviews with cast members of the show.
