She first went to The Prom in the spring of 2019, only a few short months before she’d get the call. Jo Ellen Pellman, the new leading lady of Ryan Murphy’s glitzy, feel-good movie musical The Prom, attended the show with her mother on Broadway, the two of them lifelong showtune connoisseurs. Both Pellman and her mother are queer, and they left the theater in tears, having just seen themselves reflected in the dancing characters on stage.