current production

Synopsis

The Drowsy Chaperone is an homage to American musicals of the Jazz Age, examining
the effect musicals have on the fans who adore them

The Man in Chair, a mousy, agoraphobic Broadway fanatic, seeking to cure his
"non-specific sadness", listens to a recording of a fictional 1928 musical comedy, The
Drowsy Chaperone. As he listens to this rare recording, he is transported into the
musical. The characters appear in his dingy apartment, and it is transformed into an
impressive Broadway set with seashell footlights, sparkling furniture, painted
backdrops, and glitzy costumes.

The plot of the show-within-a-show centers on Janet Van De Graaff, a showgirl who
plans to give up her career in order to marry an oil tycoon, Robert Martin. However,
Janet is the star of "Feldzieg's Follies", and a lot of money is riding on her name to sell
the show; and Feldzieg, her producer, is being threatened with bodily harm by two
gangsters employed by his chief investor. Disguised as pastry chefs, these two
pun-happy thugs threaten Feldzieg to stop the wedding, in order to ensure Janet's
participation in the next production of Feldzieg's Follies. In order to save himself,
Feldzieg enlists Aldolpho, a bumbling Latin Lothario, to seduce Janet and spoil her
relationship with Robert. Meanwhile, Janet is having doubts about her groom. Disguising
herself as a French woman, she tempts Robert into kissing her, and a massive
misunderstanding emerges. The ensuing plot incorporates mistaken identities, dream
sequences, spit takes, a deus ex machina, an unflappable English butler, an
absent-minded dowager, a ditzy chorine, a harried best man, and Janet's "Drowsy"
(i.e. "Tipsy") Chaperone, played in the show-within-a-show by a blowzy Grande Dame
of the Stage, specializing in "rousing anthems" and not above upstaging the occasional
co-star.

Watching from his armchair, Man in Chair is torn between his desire to absorb every
moment of the show as it unfolds and his need to insert his personal footnotes and his
extensive-but-trivial knowledge of musical performances and actors, as he frequently
brings the audience in and out of the fantasy. As the show goes on, more of his personal
life is revealed through his musings about the show, until, as the record ends, he is left
again alone in his apartment — but still with his record of a long-beloved show to turn to
whenever he's blue.

The concept that the audience is listening to the musical on an old LP is used throughout
the show. At one point, the record "skips", which causes the last notes (and dance
steps) of a song to be repeated until the Man in Chair can bump the turntable. A "power
outage" near the end causes the stage to go dark in the middle of the big production
number. Despite the show-within-the-show being a two act musical, 'The Drowsy
Chaperone' is played without an intermission; at the end of the "show"'s first act, the
Man in Chair observes that there would be an intermission "if we were sitting in a
theater, watching The Drowsy Chaperone. Which we're not." His monologue at the
musical's intermission point ends when he changes records (ostensibly preparing the
turntable to play the musical's second act), then leaves the stage "to use the
bathroom". The new record is actually the second act of a different musical by the same
composer and librettist, starring many of the same actors. "Message from a
Nightingale" is performed in costumes evoking Imperial China, with the performers
displaying cliched Chinese accents and mannerisms. The Man in Chair returns to the
stage and replaces the disc with the correct one for Act II of "The Drowsy Chaperone."