About The Show
The Basics
Winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Book and Best Original Score, The Drowsy Chaperone is a loving send-up of the Golden Age musical, featuring one show-stopping song and dance number after another.
With the houselights down, a man in a chair appears on stage and puts on his favorite record: the cast recording of a fictitious 1928 musical. The recording comes to life and The Drowsy Chaperone begins as the man in the chair looks on. Mix in two lovers on the eve of their wedding, a bumbling best man, a desperate theatre producer, a not-so-bright hostess, two gangsters posing as pastry chefs, a misguided Don Juan, and an intoxicated chaperone, and you have the ingredients for an evening of madcap delight!
Hailed by New York Magazine as "The Perfect Broadway Musical," The Drowsy Chaperone is a masterful meta-musical, poking fun at all the tropes that characterize the musical theatre genre.
The Drowsy Chaperone is presented in one act without intermission.
The performance lasts approximately an hour and 45 minutes.
ANY VIDEO AND/OR AUDIO RECORDING OF THIS PRODUCTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
Synopsis and Songs
WARNING: This synopsis of the play contains spoilers.
In the darkness, we hear a theatregoer's lament, and a prayer for the current state of the theatrical art. The lights come up; we see a rather ordinary man, sitting in a chair in his rather ordinary New York apartment. Admitting to a state of "non-specific sadness," he asks us to escape with him as he plays the LP of his favourite musical: Gable & Stein's The Drowsy Chaperone. Dropping the needle on his hi-fi, Man In Chair's imagination takes flight with the sound of a full orchestra. ("Overture") Soon, into his apartment parades the entire cast of the original 1928 production. With caveats of its "two-dimensional characters" and "well-worn plot," Man In Chair now guides us into the story...
"Act I"
On the grounds of her estate, the dotty dowager Mrs Tottendale is to hostess a wedding. ("Fancy Dress") She confers with her butler, Underling. The groom, dashing oil-magnate-heir Robert Martin, toasts his bride, Broadway starlet Janet Van de Graaff. Best Man George, the weight of the wedding on his harried shoulders, protests; the bride mustn't see the groom on her wedding day. George fobs Janet off to the already half-in-the-bag (i.e. "Drowsy") Chaperone. Broadway Impresario Mr. Feldzeig bemoans his fate to dizzy chorine Kitty: Janet's getting married is a catastrophic development. Two Gangsters, posing as Pastry Chefs, put the screws to Feldzieg to keep Janet in "Feldzieg's Follies," at the behest of its primary investor — their underworldly Boss. As Robert attempts to calm his wedding-day jitters ("Cold Feets"), George recommends that the love-struck groom go roller skating: "That's what I do when I wanna blow off steam!" George then blindfolds Robert before sending him off, lest Robert accidentally set eyes on his fiancée. The scene is interrupted by Man In Chair's telephone ringing — which he pointedly declines to answer.
The scene shifts Poolside, where the glamorous Janet lounges before a ravenous press, who pepper her with questions: Won't she regret leaving Show Business for a man she barely knows? Janet, with the requisite plate-spinning, hoop-jumping and one-handed cart-wheeling, rebuffs the suggestion. ("Show Off")
Desperate to stave off the impending nuptials, Feldzieg seeks an accomplice in self-described Latin Lothario Aldolpho. Goading Aldolpho by alleging that the Groom is slandering him, Feldzieg slyly suggests that the hot-headed Spaniard settle the score by seducing the Bride. Aldolpho sets off to exact his revenge.
We shift now to Man In Chair's least favourite — "The Spit-take scene" — wherein Mrs. Tottendale, instructing Underling on Prohibition code words, ends up drenching the poor serf in half-swilled vodka instead. Meanwhile, Janet expresses her misgivings to the Chaperone: is Robert in love with Janet, the girl, or with Janet Van De Graaff, Glamorous Broadway Star? After the Chaperone sings what Man In Chair calls "Basically … a rousing anthem about alcoholism" ("As We Stumble Along"), the Chaperone, claiming "Drowsiness," sends the wary bride off to find Robert and ask him "the one question upon which [her] future happiness depends: 'Roger, Do you love me?'" Janet — correcting her — leaves the place alone for the grand entrance of Aldolpho. ("I Am Aldolpho") Seeing the Chaperone, Aldolpho mistakenly assumes she is the one upon whom he is meant to practice his legendary lovemaking skills. Surprisingly, the Chaperone throws herself into his arms. The King of Romance, not one to trade the thrill of the chase for the object of the hunt, holds the Chaperone at bay.
Into the garden, blindfolded and on roller skates, glides a blissfully unaware Robert. Janet follows, disguising herself as "Mimi," a mysterious French girl. ("Accident Waiting to Happen") Caught up in the memory of his first meeting with Janet, which he recounts as they skate a pas-de-deux, Robert and "Mimi" share a kiss… but Janet, realising, slaps the befuddled swain and dashes away, in tears. Feldzieg paces. He's about to lose his leading lady — and the use of his kneecaps — for sure. Kitty volunteers to replace his star with her mind-reading act: "Kitty, The Incomprehensible." But when the Pastry Chefs arrive, Feldzieg throws them off the scent by combining their sense of rhythm with their weakness for cooking metaphors! ("Toledo Suprise") Aldolpho enters to announce: The wedding is off! He has made love to the Bride, indicating — the Chaperone! The room exhales. The wedding is on."The wedding is off!" The speaker is Janet herself. "Robert kissed a French girl. Her name is Mimi. She's very beautiful." Robert pleads: "I couldn't help it, Janet! She was just like you — only French!" As the Ensemble sings a reprise of despair ("Act 1 Finale"), Janet and Robert's dreams lie in tatters, and...
The curtain falls on Act I. It is now Intermission. Or, at least it would be — if we were sitting at the Morosco theatre in 1928, watching The Drowsy Chaperone… Which, of course, we are not. The Man crosses before the closed curtain and eats a power bar, musing about his own wedding. "Are you surprised to hear I was married? Well… " And now he has to go and take a comfort break. While he's gone — we can listen to the opening of Act II. The Man has left us alone to witness a catastrophic mistake he has made — which owes to a snafu from his once-monthly housekeeper, whose penchant for touching the Man's records now bears its strange, Oriental fruit. ("Message from a Nightingale") A quick change of LPs' and the second act of The Drowsy Chaperone is under way...
"Act II"
A depressed Janet sings longingly. ("Bride's Lament") The song devolves into a Mad Scene, as the tormented Bride is torn between her "Life of Glamour" and a future with Robert. Meanwhile, as Mrs. Tottendale and Underling muse about the history of love ("Love Is Always Lovely"), their observations cast their own magic spell... which is nearly ruined by Man In Chair's phone ringing again. This time he simply rips the machine out of the wall.
As the recording spins toward its conclusion, the Chaperone and Mrs. Tottendale reveal that they are to be married to Aldolpho and Underling, respectively. George nearly blows a gasket: "Everybody's getting married except the bride and groom!" Janet turns for advice to her beloved Chaperone. "Should I marry Robert?" Man In Chair turns to us: "Here it comes — the moment that has fascinated me more than any other." The Chaperone delivers her words of wisdom — which — owing to yet another old-fashioned, LP-related snafu — are promptly rendered inaudible! Playing this moment over and over for us, this vinyl flaw, combined with a little too much brandy, leads to a semi-drunken rant from the tortured Man, who unburdens himself about the confluence of unfortunate events that have led him to this pass, this moment, and this life. He drops the needle on the fateful moment one more time. "You have no idea," the drained Man concludes, "how many times I've listened to that." And yet, Janet turns to Robert — and agrees to marry him.
As George revels in his success at planning the wedding, it dawns: he forgot to book the minister! No matter — a literal Deus Ex Machina appears in the form of Trix the Aviatrix, whom we glimpsed briefly in the opening, landing her bi-plane behind them. Thinking fast, the assemblage points out that as the Captain of a Ship (of the air), Trix can perform the marriages) herself! ("I Do, I Do in the Sky") Trix happily obliges and as the betrothed couples climb aboard the plane, the play reaches its penultimate note — and there is a power cut. The record grinds to a halt. The stage is plunged into darkness.
Alone now, the Man is beside himself, inconsolable; one note from the end, and the moment is ruined. Falling into despair, he seeks comfort by singing to himself. ("Finale Ultimo") And yet this time, the Man discovers, he is not alone... those characters he loves so well have never left his imagination. They stand beside him, ready, as ever, to transport him. As the play draws to its (quite literally) uplifting close, the Man disappears, with his memories, his dreams, and — for whenever he's feeling a little blue — his beloved recording of The Drowsy Chaperone.
The 1920s Musical
The 1920s in the United States was a decade of great prosperity and innovation. Technology was advancing faster than ever before, and with the advent of radio and film, people across the country could keep up with current events much more regularly. In the world of entertainment, musical comedy was also on the rise. Audiences loved the jazz-inspired music and the common themes and tropes of the time: the clash of high-brow and low-brow culture, cases of mistaken identity, bumbling gangsters, plot twists, showgirls, slapstick comedy, a dose of deus ex machina, and a wedding to cap off the night.
In The Drowsy Chaperone, a pastiche of those 1920s comedies, we see all the elements of a true Gershwin-era musical. Janet and George supply the love story that holds the piece together, and they even get to dabble with disguise and mistaken identity along the way. The absent-minded dowager, Mrs. Tottendale, and her Underling (known only as “Underling” in the show) provide the contrast of high-brow and low-brow culture when juxtaposed against theater producer Feldzieg and the gangsters — disguised as chefs — who, on orders from their boss, are determined to steer Janet back toward show business and away from married life with George.
Other twenties necessities are also sprinkled throughout the plot, including bootlegged booze under Prohibition, the over-the- top lover Aldolpho, and deus ex machina in the form of a literal machine: an airplane (aviation as entertainment was all the rage at the time) piloted by Trix the Aviatrix. With all the twists and turns of early musical comedy, many of them employed this technique borrowed from the Greeks in which, out of the sky, a character appears to resolve the plot and tie up loose ends.
Beyond capturing the spirit of twenties musical comedy in its characters and plot, The Drowsy Chaperone also accesses the sounds of the era through its jazzy score inspired by those of the composers of the time: the Gershwins, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, to name a few. In the twenties, musical comedy composers were inspired by and borrowed from the African American musicians who invented jazz in the nightclubs of cities like New York, Chicago, and St. Louis. Though an improvisational art form, composers of musicals and vaudeville acts endeavored to recreate the feeling of this new type of American music in their compositions: rhythmic but freeform, melodic yet unpredictable. The music also inspired new styles of dance like the Charleston that were more individualized than the dances of previous generations.
The decade of the twenties introduced so many enduring elements of our popular culture, not the least of which is musical comedy, and The Drowsy Chaperone captures the spirit not only of those early musicals but also of those who love them still. Just as the audiences of those original musical comedies sought light-hearted, escapist entertainment, so too does the Man in the Chair as he takes you along on the journey of The Drowsy Chaperone.
Parody vs. Pastiche
Parody
A parody is a work that embraces, imitates and makes fun of another author or work. It is used in literary or musical works and aims to ridicule its subject. Though parody is typically done in a negative or critical way, it can also express admiration or be done with a constructive purpose in mind. The earliest examples of parody in literature can be traced back to ancient Greece, but modern-day parody musicals began in the 1980s when a young “waiter-actor” named Gerard Alessandrini heard a rumor that Richard Burton frequently performed drunk during the run of Camelot at New York Stage Theatre. He took the number from Camelot called “I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight” and created new lyrics for a new song called “I Wonder What the King is Drinking Tonight.” The number became the first in his show called Forbidden Broadway which has been parodying different performers, shows and theatrical trends since its first performance in 1982. Other examples of musical parodies include Avenue Q, Spamilton, and Disaster!
Parody is a special technique that, when done right, creates an enjoyable and humorous experience for theatre-goers and lovers of the subject being parodied. It is important to recognize that the key to writing a successful parody is having a thorough appreciation of the subject being imitated.
Pastiche
Pastiche and parody are similar in the respect that they both use another work or style as their inspiration. The difference between the two, however, lies in the fact that parody mocks its subjects while pastiche celebrates them. Pastiche imitates the style of a work that came before it and is a sort of tribute.
Pastiche is used in literature as well as musical theatre, and some examples include: The Second Mrs. Darcy (which is a pastiche of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) and Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead (which is a pastiche of Hamlet). Pastiche can also be found in such musicals as A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love & Murder which is a pastiche of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, The Will Rogers Follies, and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Is The Drowsy Chaperone a Pastiche or a Parody?
The Drowsy Chaperone can be classified as both parody and pastiche and examples of both run throughout the libretto and score. The creators of The Drowsy Chaperone do not call it a parody of musicals, but rather “an homage to oldfashioned shows.” This tribute to older musicals is successful in part due to the “show-within-a-show” style used in the musical. While the audience watches The Drowsy Chaperone in the theatre, it is actually watching a narrator watch his favorite show: a fictitious musical, also titled The Drowsy Chaperone. Man in Chair is the narrator of this show, and it is his excitement and admiration for The Drowsy Chaperone that draws the audience in and encourages those watching to view the story through his eyes. Throughout the show, Man in Chair critiques or criticizes elements of this fictitious 1920s musical that he watches with the audience, which is one of the aspects of the show that make it a parody. For instance, in one scene that he does not like, he addresses the audience, saying “I hate this scene.”
The show itself is a parody of 1920s musicals. As the audience watches Man in Chair explain how he believes The Drowsy Chaperone must have looked onstage, a stereotypically loud and flashy view of the 1920s is painted. The show includes two gangsters, a famous celebrity, a European, and an over-the-top love story which are easily recognizable tropes in shows from or set in this time. The characters and storyline are over-exaggerated and archetypal, the exact way they are frequently portrayed in shows from this era, such as No, No, Nanette; Sally; and the Ziegfeld Follies.
Pastiche can be heard in the 1920s Jazz Age sounds throughout the score of The Drowsy Chaperone in songs such as “Cold Feets,” “Show Off,” and “Love is Always Lovely.” Though Man in Chair sometimes critiques certain aspects of the play, he is enthralled by the music and has a true respect for it. He even tries to engage the audience and invites them to love the music as much as he does, asking “Don’t you just love that number?” The respect that he has for the music is a key part of pastiche and shows that this musical is a tribute to old-fashioned shows.
A History of Cast Recordings
The Drowsy Chaperone’s protagonist, called simply Man in Chair, treasures his collection of Original Cast Recordings (OCRs). They allow him to relive his favorite shows, which come to life in his imagination as he listens to the record. This is a familiar phenomenon—many Broadway fans prize their recordings of the shows they love. And the history of cast recordings is an interesting one, interacting with American popular culture in many ways.
First of all, a technical note: the albums made of Broadway musicals are usually called "original cast recordings" (or simply "cast recordings", if it’s not the original cast) – not "soundtracks". This may seem like a small difference, but soundtracks are the musical scores of movies, heightening the emotions of a film during a scene. Musicals, however, have songs written as integral parts of the drama, so their recordings are not quite the same.
Tin Pan Alley
The idea of re-creating a favorite song or show at home pre-dated recordings, and indeed pre-dated musicals as we know them. The music publishers of what was called Tin Pan Alley in Manhattan would print and sell sheet music of popular songs, many of which were featured in Vaudeville shows (although songs were usually on Vaudeville because they were popular, and not the other way around). In the early part of the 20th century, recordings had been made of songs from popular shows, but never a full cast recording—which is fitting considering that songs weren’t an integral part of the storytelling of a musical until Show Boat, in 1927.
The Very First Show Recordings
England was the first to record a full cast recording of a musical, with their production of Show Boat in 1929 (the American version, a year earlier, wasn’t recorded). Although there was an experimental recording made of The Band Wagon in 1931, it wasn’t widely released, and a 1932 recording of Show Boat used studio singers and only two cast members. 1938’s Cradle Will Rock featured the full cast of the show, but not the full orchestra—only piano.
The First "True" Cast Recordings
Fittingly enough, the first original cast recording as we know it—meaning the full Broadway cast and orchestra—was of the musical considered by many to be the first modern musical as we know it: Oklahoma! in 1943. The show was a huge hit, and those who couldn’t buy tickets bought the double-78-rpm record set to have as close to the experience of seeing the show as they could. The album was a hit as well, selling over a million copies on 78-rpm record (and millions more in other forms, including LP and CDs).
Chart Toppers
In the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn’t uncommon for Broadway cast recordings to top the charts—the albums for My Fair Lady; The Music Man; Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl all hit #1 on the Billboard music charts, and their popular songs were radio hits. But as rock and roll began to dominate music culture and television increasingly captured America’s attention, Broadway albums slipped from radio play, and then from the charts. In the past 50 years, only six OCRs have made it into Billboard’s top 20: Hair, Dreamgirls, If/Then, Rent, The Book of Mormon, Hamilton (which made it to no. 3, and also earned a spot on the chart for rap as well), and most recently Dear Evan Hansen in 2018.
However, for fans like the Man in Chair, it’s not the most popular recordings that are the prize, but rather the least. There’s a robust community of Broadway fans who treasure their collections of rare recordings. These are mostly from shows that were far from hits, and that exist now only in these few remnants. But with an old record player, any fan can sit down, place the needle just so, and relive a bit of Broadway history.
Prohibition
Prohibition was the period from 1920 to 1933 in the United States during which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol was illegal. Motivated by factors ranging from moral to economic to regulatory, a Temperance Movement concerned with first the moderation of and later the prohibition of alcohol emerged following World War I. Champions of Prohibition believed that eliminating the manufacture and sale of alcohol would minimize reckless spending among the lower and working classes, workplace accidents, and crime across the country. By the time the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which imposed Prohibition nationwide, was ratified on January 16, 1920, over half of the states in the US already had prohibition laws on the books.
Almost immediately following the institution of Prohibition nationally, a black market for alcohol sales and transportation developed, and it proved nearly impossible to enforce the new laws. Bootleggers sold and often produced illegal alcohol like moonshine or bathtub gin; secret, underground bars and clubs called speakeasies cropped up in astonishing quantities (by 1927, there were estimated to be 30,000 illegal speakeasies—twice the number of legal bars in existence before Prohibition); and rumrunners all over the country smuggled alcohol shipments across state lines. All this activity gave rise to a new kind of gangster that sought to consolidate and control the illegal alcohol trade, and people like Al Capone and George Remus became household names. They even permeated popular culture, particularly musical comedy, as the “gangster” character became a popular trope for situational and slapstick comedy in the theater. Despite it being common knowledge at the time that alcohol was being illegally trafficked across the country, authorities still had difficulty enforcing Prohibition with any lasting effect.
When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the economy collapsed into the Great Depression, the country needed a solution to stimulate commerce and create jobs. Repealing Prohibition would reestablish the brewing industry and the jobs that supported it, and the government would profit from the sales tax. Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933 when the 21st Amendment (which repealed the 18th Amendment) was ratified.
Bessie "Queen Bess" Coleman, the Original Aviatrix
Bessie Coleman was born the daughter of a poor, southern farming family in 1892 and grew up to become the first pilot of Native American descent (her father was part Cherokee) and the first female African American pilot in the world. Despite working on the family farm from a young age, Bessie was an avid reader, attended school as often as she could, and graduated from high school. Though she was only able to afford one semester of college, she was determined to leave her mark on the world.
Bessie attended beauty school and worked as a manicurist in Chicago to support herself when she decided to become a pilot. Aviation was still very new technology at the time, and both women and African Americans were hugely disadvantaged in the field—flight schools in the United States enrolled neither women nor African Americans—but after her brother John’s incessant teasing about the French women he had met during World War I who had careers as pilots, Bessie became even more determined. Bessie saved as much money as she could, and on the advice of one of her mentors, she sailed for France where she attended the Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation.
She completed the Federation Aeronautique Internationale’s 10-month training program in only 7 months and returned as a celebrity to the United States in 1921; she was the first black woman in the world to earn an aviator’s license. Upon her return, she started doing air shows not only to establish herself as a professional pilot but also to increase interest in flying among women and African Americans. An activist for equal rights and treatment, Bessie (“Queen Bess,” to her fans) refused to perform for any arenas that had segregated gates or seating, and she always included lectures, exhibitions, and flying lessons to make aviation more accessible to everyday people.