DROWSY CHAPERONE Aims to Entertain at CUA, 2/22-3/2

"I know it is not a perfect show, the spit-take scene is lame and the monkey motif is labored ... but it does what a musical is supposed to do! It takes you to another world and it gives you a little tune to carry in your head for when you're feeling blue."

So says the narrator of the Tony Award-winning comedy "The Drowsy Chaperone," presented by the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at The Catholic University of America on two consecutive weekends, Friday, Feb. 22, through Sunday, March 2.

"The Drowsy Chaperone" is simultaneously tribute and farcical satire of a typical 1920s "Jazz Age" Broadway musical. Framed and narrated by an agoraphobic Broadway fanatic known as The Man in the Chair, the musical unfolds in his imagination when he sits down to listen to a record of his favorite musical, the fictional "Drowsy Chaperone." Throughout the play, he offers his own, often disparaging, commentary.

The seven-piece band will be silhouetted against a colored backdrop at the back of the stage, giving the audience "that old sense of the big band...the conductor, the piano, the brass players," Brock adds.

The creative team has contracted with New York choreographer Kimberly Schafer, providing an emphasis on dance in the show that is also unique.

Tickets will be available online at music.cua.edu beginning Feb. 1 and can be purchased at the door.