Drowsy Chaperone

I enjoy a Broadway musical every now and then, but I'm not the sort of person who watches the Tony awards or keeps up with the latest shows on Broadway. So it was sort of ironic when my sister asked me if I'd heard of the new musical The Drowsy Chaperon and I could actually say yes. The truth was I had heard of it in the most basic sense because the LA Times, my home page at the time, was advertising the show. I guess the show worked out it's bugs in LA and then went to Broadway. She shared the CD with me at one point, but it didn't really grab me. In fact, I found it to be a little odd.

Then the show came to Salt Lake and my sister invited me to go along. I was curious to see what I had missed out on in LA. As part of my pre-show routine, I borrowed the CD from her and listened again. This time I started to worry that I had bought tickets to a show I just wasn't going to get. The CD made it sound like the show was full of jokes about Broadway that only the true fan would get or understand. And the show does make fun of musicals, but it's actually quite accessible to anyone who's seen Les Miz or Phantom. If you like musicals, you'll probably like The Drowsy Chaperone, but don't buy the CD unless you LOVE musicals.

I do have to admit though that the cast had a lot to do with my experience. It was an equity tour, so most of the cast had performed on Broadway. But the biggest highlight of all was that the role of the man in the chair was played by Gilbert Blythe (aka Jonathan Crombie).

That alone was worth the thirty bucks I paid for my nose-bleed seat, and he was downright hilarious as the man in the chair.

I also found out that tickets for Wicked go on sale at the end of November/first part of December and I thought I'd share that because I think everyone should go see it. Just make sure you save some tickets for me.


*Photo from http://www.sullivanmovies.com/mini_series/anne_of_green_gables/anne_cast_jcrombie.html