THE DROWSY CHAPERONE SUMMARY SERIES

It's easy to understand why this breezy theatrical jaunt back in time has so entranced North American audiences. in 2005, The Drowsy Chaperone hit Broadway in May 2006, where it ran for a respectable 700 performances.

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE SUMMARY SERIES

In preparation for the transfer, Martin joined the writing team and created the role of Man in Chair - a closeted Broadway obsessive who copes with his anxieties by listening to old LPs of his favorite musicals, in this case a fictitious “classic” from the 1920s, “Gable and Stein's The Drowsy Chaperone” - which the Man proudly owns in “a two-record set, remastered from the original recording made in 1928.” The show played a series of increasingly large Canadian theaters before whetting the appetites of New York producers. The show, whose central musical-within-a-musical plot concerned a glamorous showgirl's decision to leave the footlights behind forever and marry the man she loves despite the vengeful misgivings of her cigar-chomping impresario, then went to the Toronto Fringe Festival. In 1999, composer-lyricists Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and actor-writer Don McKellar performed a spoof on old musicals at theater chums Bob Martin and Janet Van De Graaff's prenuptial party. That The Drowsy Chaperone boasted considerable popularity via Broadway, a London transfer, and a national tour is remarkable when you consider that the show started out as a Canadian party trick. If this is entertainment, then I'll take indigestion. I felt strangely empty afterward, as if I had been to a fancy restaurant but could barely recall anything I'd eaten. Unlike the plane, however, I soon crashed, discovering that the high had been of the sugar variety. From the peppy production numbers and guffaw-inducing puns to the flamboyant costumes and careening scenery, this effervescent homage to Jazz Era musicals leaves us feeling as high as the old-fashioned biplane that takes off into the rigging at the end of the show amid sherbet-colored lights and bubblegum grins.

If unsullied entertainment is the goal toward which all musicals aim, then The Drowsy Chaperone ought, by many people's standards, to be one of the greatest assemblages of hoofin', singin', and goofin' ever to have graced the Broadway stage. What, exactly, is the point of a musical? Man in Chair, the narrator figure in the musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone, echoes millions of theatergoers when he says, “I just want a story, and a few good songs that will take me away.

The drowsy chaperone summary