BWW Reviews: NYU Steinhardt Presents THE DROWSY CHAPERONE

If you're a fan of musicals, you probably have a favorite recording. It may be that you have never seen. You've listened to each song so many times that you start to hear the beginning of the next song when one ends. Not only do you know each of the lines, you know how the actors say them. People have probably made fun of you.

This is the central conceit of The Drowsy Chaperone. The audience watches the production through the eyes of the mega-fan, Man in Chair, who is letting us in on his favorite recording of a 1920s musical, The Drowsy Chaperone. We see the miusical through his imagination.

Man in Chair puts the needle on the record, and what ensues is hilarious enough to make your stomach hurt, yet each one of his lines has an iron core of honesty. By the end of the show, you will be surprised to find your eyes wet-how many of us have fallen in love with a musical and hidden from our fears during the countless times we've listened?

February 13-15, New York University's Steinhardt Vocal Performance program will perform The Drowsy Chaperone through their student-run Player's Club. The show is entirely produced by students, though directed and choreographed professionally by MK Lawson (Bloodsong of Love, Sweet Smell of Success).

Lawson has migrated a bit from the original piece, but not in a way you'd expect. NYU's production gender-bends three of the characters, including the titular Drowsy Chaperone (played here by the deliciously exhausted and over-soused Joe Conceison). While the gender of the character remains the same, the genders of the actors playing them flip.

This tactic originates in the text. Man in Chair has spent years of his life adoring this recording without ever seeing the performance live. The magic of the production, for him, lives within the soundtrack. "It was my feeling that, because all he had to go on were the voices on the album, the people who personified those voices were right to personify the roles," says Lawson. She did not set out to direct it this way. "During the callback process, I had not yet decided to gender-bend the characters," Lawson says. "Both men and women were called back for the same roles."

Lawson notes a "bonus" to this approach. Through her casting, the show now ends (spoiler alert!) with four couples getting married-three of which are played by couples of the same sex. Lawson says this may provide comfort for the Man in Chair, whose romantic life has unraveled and whose sexuality is ambiguous. What if he finds companionship-even friends- within this show with so many same-sex couples?

Though the characters are technically all heterosexual, the gender-bent casting demands the question: what is gender? Can it be tried on and removed like a hat, or a character in a musical?

The Drowsy Chaperone is a love letter to musical theatre, both old and new. Anyone who adores musical theatre also remembers the musical that they tirelessly listened to, whether on a vinyl, tape, MP3, or even bootlegged recordings. The cast is filled with professional-level students with an affinity for finding the truth in musical comedy, and there is hardly anything more inspiring to watch than a group of very talented, passionate people using their strongest skills to tip their hats to what they love most.

Tickets for The Drowsy Chaperone are available here:

www.nyu.edu/ticketcentral/calendar

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE: Book: Bob Martin and Don McKellar; Music and Lyrics: Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison; Director and Choreographer: MK Lawson; Associate Choreographer: Maria Malanga; Music Director: Chris Piro; Costume Design: Rose Bisogno; Lighting Design: Curtis Reynolds and Alex Guhde; Stage Manager: James Rose. Starring: Raphael Anastasiadis; Catherine Ang, Drew Carr; Joe Conceison; Jack Flatley; Alex Guhde; Kevin Hodge; Hayley Jackowitz; Jillian Jameson; Taylor Johnson; Lauren Krauss; Curtis Reynolds; Philip Skinner; Sarah Treanor; Parker Wallis.

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE performs at the NYU Black Box Theater, 82 Washington Square East Admission: $8 General, $5 w/ valid NYU ID February 13 & 14 at 8:00 pm?February 14 & 15 at 3:00 pm

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