Netflix’s The Prom Is Here To Save Theater Kids From 2020

Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Kerry Washington are here to save 2020. Netflix's The Prom teaser trailer, released on Thursday, Oct. 22, gives fans a first look at director Ryan Murphy's new over-the-top musical that will surely lift our spirits as 2020 (finally) comes to an end.

In the upcoming film, Streep, Kidman, James Corden, and Andrew Rannells play former Broadway stars who are in desperate need of a career rebirth after their latest show fails to take off. They find a great PR opportunity in Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman), who has been banned from attending prom with her girlfriend Alyssa (Ariana DeBose) at their small-town Indiana high school due to opposition from the PTA president (Washington). Fueled by desires to fight against homophobia and revive their careers, the stars head to Indiana to give Emma a night to remember, with some help from their secretly supportive principal (Keegan Michael-Key).

The Prom was based on the groundbreaking Broadway musical of the same name, which premiered in October 2018 and ran for just under a year, garnering seven Tony nominations. The show itself was loosely based on the true story of Constance McMillen, who was barred from going to prom with her girlfriend at her Mississippi high school in 2010. When she reported the incident to the American Civil Liberties Union, the school canceled the prom altogether, garnering nationwide attention and a slew of support for McMillen (sadly, no Tony winners came to her rescue in real life).

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy said that the musical "kind of summed up my whole existence" as a gay teenager, urging him to take charge of the film adaptation. "I'm from Indiana. In high school, I was not allowed to bring my date to the prom," he explained. "That was personal to me. I ended up taking my best girlfriend. When I saw it, it was so joyful and it was so optimistic, and it was fun, and yet it had something to say."

Streep, meanwhile, was just excited to do a joyous film with a happy ending — and her first musical since Mamma Mia! "You've got to have some fun," she told THR. "This is based on a real thing that happened to kids in Indiana, and has a happy ending, everything we dream of in 2020." She was also looking forward to playing Dee Dee Allen, a character that she described as a "big *sshole." "I tried very hard to bring that part of me forward," she joked.

The Prom premieres on Netflix on Friday, Dec. 11.