The Broadway musical The Prom put its money where its mouth is when it hosted the wedding of Armelle Kay Harper and Jody Kay Smith after the evening performance August 3.
Harper, a script coordinator for the Tony Award-nominated Best Musical, and Smith, an actor and singer who recently did a reading for another show with The Prom鈥檚 music director Meg Zervoulis, wanted the Broadway show to be a part of their union.
Though the two women are enjoying a bigger wedding in Smith鈥檚 hometown next month, they wanted to celebrate with the company that had truly embraced them fully from the start. Harper鈥檚 family partially disowned her in February, when the couple sent out their save-the-dates. But they have always felt accepted by the team of The Prom, a story centered around high school student Emma who is barred from taking her girlfriend to the prom.
The musical鈥檚 co-book writer, Bob Martin, officiated the ceremony onstage at the Longacre Theatre鈥攚here the audience was invited, but not required, to stay. Martin previously married Roy Miller (a producer of his The Drowsy Chaperone) and Heather Hawkins (an actor, though not in Drowsy) in an onstage wedding during that show鈥檚 pre-Broadway tryout back in 2005.
Harper and Smith first met in 2017 and got engaged 19 days after their first date.
The Prom marks Harper鈥檚 third Broadway show and she currently works as an assistant to Martin and to Tony-winning composer David Yazbek.
鈥�The Prom company has really embraced me and made me feel loved by my chosen family,鈥� Harper told 半岛体育. 鈥淛ody and I attend Prom events together all the time.... The Prom means the world to the two of us as lesbians from the Midwest/South.鈥�
