We went to the Arizona Broadway Theatre last night to see a show with which I was totally unfamiliar, The Drowsy Chaperone. According to the show notes, it won five Tony Awards in 2006. How could I have missed it? I mean, I watch every Tony Awards and I don’t remember a thing about this drowsy musical. We were pleasantly surprised. The ABT has kept improving every season since the first. The set designs are wonderful considering how small the stage is they have to work with. And the choreography is coming close to Broadway standards. For this show, the stage was amazingly complex, with the opening set in an apartment, day bed stage left, two doorways at the rear, a lamp and chair stage right, a refrigerator and other kitchen appliances against the back wall. The narrator, seated right, introduced the show we were about to see, explaining that it was first done in 1928, and it was one of his favorites. On his ancient turntable, he puts on the record of the show, and the stage lights as the principles emerge from out of the refrigerator to do the first number, “Fancy Dress,” wherein we learn that a young Broadway starlet is about the get married, leaving the show she’s in, causing the producer to try to avert the wedding. The rest of the plot involves the usual slapstick comedy bits. But the music and dancing was excellent, the costuming diverse and gorgeous with one scene including about a dozen cast members dressed as monkeys, another with half a dozen in Japanese outfits. We know the theatre is doing well financially, but the sets and costumes must cost a bundle. If you ever get a chance to see The Drowsy Chaperone, be sure to go. You’ll enjoy it as much as we did.
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