I've been following the progress of this show for a while so I am excited to say it will be opening at the wonderful Nederlander Marquis Theatre (due to the early demise of The Woman In White) in New York in May!

According to this article in Playbill:

Broadway's Marquis Theatre will be home to the musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone -- to be one of the 2005-06 season's only musicals not based on existing source material or real characters. It starts previews April 3 toward a May 1 opening.

The recent announcement of the closing of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White (exiting Feb. 19) opened the door for Drowsy, about a rabid musical theatre maven (named "Man in Chair") who introduces the audience to his favorite period musical -- 1928's The Drowsy Chaperone, by the fictive writers Gable & Stein.

Audiences who saw earlier versions of the work in Toronto and Los Angeles howled at the experience, which is both parody of, and valentine to, musical theatre.

Bob Martin, who co-wrote the libretto of the new musical, plays the recumbent Man in Chair, who turns on a phonograph of the vintage work's rare cast album. The world of the old musical comes alive around him, in living color.

Directed and choreographed by Tony Award nominee Casey Nicholaw (Spamalot), The Drowsy Chaperone has music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and a book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar.

Congratulations guys!

Some of my favorite musical theater memories are in the Marquis (Damn Yankees with Jerry Lewis, Victor/Victoria with both Julie Andrews and Liza Minelli, Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters and even a very fun evening with the entire original cast of The Woman in White) and I'm looking forward to another great memory with The Drowsy Chaperone!

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