While prom remains the extravagant high school headliner — an excuse for girls to blow the budget on dresses, makeup, shoes and hair — the after-prom party is boldly stealing the show.
“After-prom is better than prom,” said senior Nora Bates, wowed by the glitzy, prize-filled pageant that was East High School’s post-dance party last weekend. “. . . It’s 10 times better than prom.”
Make no mistake: May is prom season, and prom remains an adolescent ritual of conspicuous consumption.
But, like people who dream of turkey sandwiches even as they obligingly endure Thanksgiving dinner, students at some schools now see after-prom as a tastier, and richer, offering than the main course.
That’s largely thanks to industrious parent-teacher organizations that have upped the level of bribes meant to lure promgoers back to the school grounds and — with a strict no re-entry policy — off the roads and away from drugs and booze.
What does it take to make a teen stay put until 4:30 a.m.? At East, it takes a $20,000 production with larger-than-life set pieces, gambling tables and prizes, lots of expensive prizes, such as iPods, a big-screen TV, a cruiser bicycle and credit cards preloaded with $500 that are doled out every half-hour through a lottery.
“It is over the top,” acknowledged Mary Bernuth, who was on walkie-talkie duty at East’s crowded event, making sure everything ran smoothly. “But as parents, we want them to have something safe and fun, and some of the parents really get into this.”
Not every high school puts on such a show. The putt-putt golf and poker at Smoky Hill High School’s after-prom looks thrifty in comparison.
But it’s becoming an expanding tradition for others, such as Cherry Creek High School, where this Saturday’s after- prom event, also funded by parents, will come with plenty of flash. It’s worth the investment of “a little more than $20,000 just to get them off the street where we can keep them safe,” says Lesley Silverman, the school’s after-prom committee chair.
Raising the bar, year after year
There’s no doubt, though, that East raised the bar for everyone this year. The after-prom parents’ committee spent 11 months working on the elaborate sets, entertainment, food and props.
Inspired by Pixar’s animated features, organizers transformed the school into various movie sets, with karaoke, gourmet hot dogs, a casino staffed by teachers, a cupcake stand, caricature artists, searchlights, a red-carpet walk flanked by video monitors and a swath of floor space replicating Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, with laminated stars bearing each senior’s name.
“It’s not like the party I went to when I was at East’s prom in 1970,” said jewelry artist Karen Parks, whose son, Tyler Johnson, graduates from East this month. She donated $500 worth of her work for the pool of upscale prizes.
For the decorations, parents reuse props saved from year to year in East’s designated after-prom storage room, and each year they try to top the last.
This year, Daniel Mendoza turned his pickup truck into a duplicate of the Pizza Planet delivery truck in “Toy Story,” complete with a glowing rocket atop the cab. He also helped build a giant Pixar lamp and ball that dwarfed the truck.
To create the undersea effect in the “Finding Nemo” hall, parent Heidi Schnicker sewed so many yards of blue fabric that her work became known as “The Tsunami.”
Erna Beerheid, godmother to Bernuth’s daughter, Lily, tackled the job of copying and hand-coloring 98,000 individual car illustrations in a grandstand banner for the “Cars” hall. Tom Stimson, a professional portrait artist, spent 120 hours on a huge painting of Bruce, the well-meaning shark in “Nemo.”
Getting casual — but still special
For the students, after-proms provide a chance to take off the formal costumes and be themselves, while keeping the idea of a special night going.
“I felt like, all right, I should get more recognition for getting my hair done, my nails done,” said student Rachel Mangione, “But boys don’t notice.”
She and her date, Sam Kleiner, had already changed into casual clothes. Classmate Nora Bates admitted it was nice to trade her 5-inch heels for flip-flops. Senior Monique Wortham, who dressed to the nines for her dinner date and prom dance with Steven Houcks, didn’t mind changing because she made “East Prom 2011” shirts for both of them.
“It’s like, there, we were dancing, and here, we get to be kids again, and put an end to all the years of hard work we did,” Wortham said.
She and Mangione were among a minority of after-prom attendees who remained with their dates. There were more groups of friends than couples hanging out, underscoring an atmosphere of celebration tinged with anticipated nostalgia — “the end of our high school experience,” as Lily Bernuth put it. The parents sensed it as well.
“I saw this event as a little magic,” said Deborah Baker, who chaired the after-prom clean-up committee. Her eldest son, Ben, will be a senior at East next year.
“I think it is, in many ways, a parent’s last hold on their graduating child,” Baker said. “Remember the volunteer clean-ups during preschool that parents grudgingly attended? Well, these East parents were eager to bend over backward and give up their weekend to help in this silly event. I was blown away. Thank God, though, that I only have two kids.”
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it was incorrectly implied that Boulder’s Fairview High School after-prom party was more modest than similar events in the region.
