THE EVOLUTION OF THE DROWSY CHAPERONE

The Drowsy Chaperone - Original Broadway Cast. Danny Burstein & Beth Leavel. Photo by Joan Marcus.

By now, the story of THE DROWSY CHAPERONE’S origins are the makings of modern musical legend.  It started out as a wedding present (its original title was “The Wedding Gift") and grew into a full-blown Broadway hit.

Toronto Second City performers (and Jazz Age aficionados) Bob Martin and Janet Van De Graaff fell in love, got engaged and asked their songwriter friend Lisa Lambert to be a best man at their wedding.  Lambert was reluctant to organize the typical bachelor party with requisite stripper, so instead she enlisted book writer Don McKellar and composer Greg Morrison and a team of theatrically-minded colleagues to create and perform a 40-minute original musical titled THE DROWSY CHAPERONE, and named the lead characters “Bob Martin” and “Janet Van De Graaff” (the show’s bride and groom).

There was hardly anything of the real Bob and Janet in the show as their cohorts endeavoured to have it be as little about their friends as possible. The point was to bring all of them together to perform a pastiche of the 1920s musicals they all loved.

After the presentation, Bob joined his cast of friends onstage, and, now famously, joked: “What a wonderful show.  I have some notes.”  Those notes would be the inspiration for the “Man in Chair,” the character whose commentary would run eventually through the more-developed version of the show.

“I knew when we were watching it in 1998 that there was something about the exuberance of a 1920s musical that seemed like the type of thing that we should go with and expand,” Martin explained.  “We knew, though, that we couldn’t just present a musical of another era, a fake musical.  That wouldn’t be enough.  We needed to add some kind of a framework, some sort of perspective on it.  We realized the value of having a very human, recognizable, iconic character, who presents the audience’s perspective on what we were watching, which would allow us to comment on it, to deconstruct it.  Sort of a more post-modern approach.”

With no source material for their story-within-a-story to provide a template for them, the four writers developed their totally original “musical within a comedy” at the Toronto Fringe Festival.  It was an instant hit; the show quickly transferred to the Theatre Passe Muraille and then to the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto, where New York producer Roy Miller was invited to see it.  Miller saw the final weekend of performances in July, 2001.  “It was unlike anything I had ever seen before,” recalls Miller.  “I was completely taken by its wit and originality.” 

In October of 2004, Miller co-produced a staged reading in New York at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), where he invited producer Kevin McCollum and others to witness Bob Martin – “Man in Chair” – and the show’s overwhelming reception.  McCollum was wowed and after the show told Miller to call him.  “Thirty minutes later he did, and that night we were having dinner with Bob Martin, Don McKellar, Greg Morrison and Lisa Lambert to talk about the hilarious show…After that dinner it was clear I had to work on this project.”

The choreographer of Monty Python’s Spamalot, Casey Nicholaw, was suggested as a possible choice for director, but the first time that everyone was available to meet wasn’t until the morning after Spamalot opened on Broadway.  “Casey showed up with a completely fresh, newly energized take on the show,” McCollum remembers, “how THE DROWSY CHAPERONE could come to life, and what changes were needed immediately.  The authors loved him and he was hired.”

The timing was perfect. Only one week before meeting with Nicholaw, the producers had made a deal with The Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles to produce the American premiere.  It was at this time that Bob Boyett came onboard as a producer, along with Barbara Freitag, Stephanie McClelland, Jill Furman, and Sonny Everett.

“After Roy and Kevin teamed up and Casey came on board,” Martin continues, “we realized that we could really do it right. With us all moving as a team, we said, okay, let’s commit to this framework as a way of presenting the show. And once we made that commitment, it led to a whole bunch of other decisions, like the intrusions into Man in Chair’s world.”

With Nicholaw at the helm, the creative process was all about enjoyment, and making the show seem less like a sketch and more like a full-blown musical – especially if it was going to make it on Broadway.  The show-within-a-show had to be fleshed out more, numbers had to be worked on to make the show dance more, audiences had to care about the characters. 
           
The process continued as the full-blown THE DROWSY CHAPERONE began previews at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles on November 10, 2005, then opened to strong reviews on November 18 playing a limited engagement through December 24, 2005. The LA production eventually won five Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, including Production, Direction, Scenic Design, Leading Actor for Bob Martin and Featured Performance for Beth Leavel.

Previews began at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway on April 3, 2006; it officially opened on May 1.  It went on to win the most Tony Awards of any musical that year, in addition to Drama Desk Awards, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Outer Critics’ Circle Awards and a Theatre World Award.

“It feels like our little show has really come full circle,” said Martin.  “Somehow it made its way from a backroom in Toronto to Broadway, and now it feels like we’re bringing the baby home.”

Throughout the “gestation period,” McCollum often said:  “A musical should start on the earth and end in the heavens.  THE DROWSY CHAPERONE does just that.”