The daffy '20s show centers on a grand wedding. With music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, the musical begins with the introduction of a rabid musical theatre fan (Man in Chair) who tells backstage stories and the on-stage plot of the title musical. The old work comes to life around him on stage, performed by a cast that includes Sutton Foster, Georgia Engel, Beth Leavel and more. Man in Chair sits in an armchair and plays his favorite obscure cast album - the disc of the forgotten 1928 Gable & Stein show, The Drowsy Chaperone. Performances continue at the Ahmanson to Dec. Commercial producers are waiting in the wings to take the show to Broadway if critics and audiences are encouraging. Now being directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw following separate, cult-hit developmental productions in Toronto, the show stars Bob Martin himself as Man in Chair, the host and guide for The Drowsy Chaperone. Martin, Lambert and Morrison thought the lark was too special to let fly away, so they developed the piece into The Drowsy Chaperone, a delicious and wildly comic spoof of musical comedies and their desperately loyal fans. Not drawn from source material, but the result of pure imagination, the show's seeds are in a public performance of what was a wedding gift to Toronto Second City actor Bob Martin: In 1998, Martin's friends Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison wrote songs and scenes for an original show called The Wedding Gift, which served as a kind of bachelor party for Martin, his friends - and even strangers.
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