![]() ![]() Bennett is superb as the quintessential flapper-girl/ingenue, handling some of the evening’s most demanding dance numbers with ease and aplomb. It’s hard to imagine anyone topping Bennett and Sark as the leading man and lady of both “versions” of “Drowsy Chaperone.” Sark has an easy-to-take persona and a pleasing tenor. As he gushes over his favorite songs and stars, his reverence for the fictional play “The Drowsy Chaperone” transforms our seeing it through his eyes into a valentine to the world of musical theater. Michael Betts’ pudgy, balding, bearded Man in Chair is an effeminate schlub who swoons over the play’s characters as they cavort in his apartment (his mind’s eye). The show’s energy never flags, with the bulk of its success due to outstanding casting and performances. Dawson, Seymour and company have done their homework. Like all great American musical comedies of the era, “Drowsy” has its share of silly, colorful, two-dimensional characters who fill out each scene while enlivening its featherweight love story. That’s the genius of a show that began in 1997, had two Toronto stagings by 1999, an out-of-town tryout at the Ahmanson Theatre in 2005 and, a year later, made it to Broadway. Of course, everything about this supposed 1928 hit show is fictitious. ![]() The story? The lonely man character, known only as “Man in Chair,” uses his aging turntable to whisk himself back in time to 1928 as he savors his original recording of the Broadway production of the then-hit musical “The Drowsy Chaperone.” ![]() Dawson, choreographer Kami Seymour and musical director and conductor Brett Simmons have the right candy-apple storybook look and tone for this show-within-a-show musical, what with Sharell Martin’s colorful period costumes and J. In fact, if they’re at all like this “Chaperone,” the changeover should be downright enjoyable.ĭirector T.J. Like 3-D and FCLO, he is dedicated to keeping musical theater alive.Īnd if the upcoming shows in 3-D’s season, originally selected and engineered by FCLO, are as good as this one, the transition should be a relatively painless one. The spoofy 2006 musical is about a lonely character devoted to all things musical theater. In many ways no musical is better suited than “The Drowsy Chaperone” to introduce 3-D Theatricals to FCLO Music Theatre’s longtime season subscribers. ![]()
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