Theatre 2026: Drowsy Chaperone @ Theatre Passe Muraille

The Drowsy Chaperone is the first Canadian musical to have substantial success and profitability on Broadway, playing for 674 performances from May 2006 through December 2007.  It was nominated for 13 Tony Awards, winning best book, original score, scenic design, costume and featured (supporting) actress.

The show had an unusual beginning. In 1997, it was created by theatre friends as a 30+ minutes musical spoof presented as a stag/doe party gift to Canadian actor/comedian Bob Martin and his fiancée Janet Van de Graaff, a Canadian improv artist and Second City performer. Written as an homage to and in the style of 1920s-40s musicals, it featured characters named after Bob and Janet who were about to be married. Robert was an oil tycoon and Janet a Broadway starlet in the Feldzeig Follies (a play on Ziegfeld), who was about to give up fame and stardom for love and marriage. Rounding out the cast were the eponymous drowsy (as in drunk) chaperone, Latin lover Adolpho, Follies producer Feldzeig, a pair of gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, and Robert’s best man George. Held at the Rivoli Club on Queen St. West, the musical was fully staged, complete with period costumes and featured bawdy or slightly racist jokes, pastiche torch songs, comedic duets, and rousing anthems. The plot was typical of the golden age musical era including hapless gangsters, wedding sabotage, seduction attempts and mistaken identities before the prerequisite happy ending.

The party sketch was such a hit that Bob Martin, along with the original writers Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison and Don McKellar decided to expand and rework it to be shown at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1999. They added the framing device of a narrator billed only as “Man in Chair”, a lonely, elderly musical lover who talks to the audience throughout the show. He is feeling blue and plays his double-vinyl cast album of the fictional 1928 musical (also named The Drowsy Chaperone), to cheer himself up. 

Here the show gets a bit “meta” as he describes the musical, the creators and actors playing each role in great detail, occasionally tossing in “Easter eggs” for musical theatre buffs to recognize. He tells us that The Drowsy Chaperone is written by Julie Gable and Sidney Styne, which seems like a tribute to the renowned composer Jule Styne (1905-1994) who wrote songs for many hit musicals including Gypsy and Funny Girl. More characters and plot points were added to the Fringe show including the odd duo of dotty Mrs. Tottendale and her stoic butler Underling who provide comic relief with a slapstick patter involving a traditional vaudeville-like “spit-take” gag, Kitty, the ditzy aspiring actress who wants to replace Janet as star of the Follies, and Trix the Aviatrix whose importance becomes apparent at the end of the show. Once the misunderstandings and mistaken identities are cleared up, there are four weddings to be held including Janet and Robert, Mrs.Tottendale and Underling, the Chaperone and Aldolpho, and finally, Feldzeig and Kitty, who turned out not to be as clueless as she appeared since she was able to trick the producer into marrying her.

Following a successful appearance at the Toronto Fringe Festival, David Mirvish financed a limited 3-week run at Theatre Passe Muraille, followed by a four-month run at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre in 2001 where the show was further expanded into a full-length production.  This eventually led to the move to Broadway where it played at the Marquis Theatre.

Now almost 30 years from its origin, the musical Drowsy Chaperone makes a triumphant return to its Theatre Passe Muraille roots. This is a production by the Shifting Ground Collective, a Toronto-based theatre company formed in 2022 with the goals of nurturing young Canadian performers and emerging musical theatre artists as well as developing new Canadian musicals. My husband Rich and I had not heard of this group before, but we fully support their mission.  So, we thought we would give the show a chance but had no idea what to expect.

We were blown away by the talent and professionalism of this excellent cast of triple-threat performers who were stellar actors, singers and especially dancers, all clothed in stunning period appropriate costumes. Particularly impressive were two dances —the tap dance number led by the actors playing Robert and George in the song “Cold Feet” and the ironic, semi-strip-tease performance by the actress in the role of Janet, who in the song "Show Off" proclaimed “I don’t want to show off” as she proceeded to do exactly that by strutting around and executing a cartwheel and a frontal split.

The main setting of the “outer” show is the apartment of Man in Chair which is decorated with posters of iconic musicals such as My Fair Lady, Oliver, Brigadoon, Anything Goes and A Chorus line, along with some black and white photos. One photo in particular is of actress Georgia Engel who played Mrs. Tottenham in the original Broadway cast and appears on the cast recording where her very distinctive voice harkens to her role of Georgette on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. While Man in Chair sits in his armchair with his record player on one side of the stage, the inner musical comes to life in the middle of the stage.  His couch and other furniture are moved around as the scenes dictate and the actors emerge and exit both from the back of the stage, and through the closet doors on either side.

The space at Theatre Passe Muraille felt too small for the huge cast of 16 actors from the inner show, especially when they are all on stage at once in the large group dance numbers that involve high kicks and waving arms. This might be why a few scenes wisely incorporated a catwalk balcony that overhangs the stage. This was especially effective in a closing scene from the second act when Trix the Aviatrix flew back into town and saved the day, since best man George forgot to book a minister for the wedding. Being the “captain of her plane”, which is almost like the captain of a ship who can perform weddings at sea, she is able to fly the four couples off to Rio and marry them while in the air. Having the couples gather on the balcony while the rest of the cast celebrate below provided enough separation so that the audience can see everyone.

Speaking of the “Second Act”, this was a feint since there is no second act despite references in the original cast recording song list and Man in Chair referencing it by changing to the second record of his cast recording. Instead, the lights brightened for a few seconds, then dimmed again as the show proceeded. Lighting effects were used multiple times in the musical. At the start of the show, the audience sat in the dark for several minutes as we listened to Man in Chair talk about how he hates the moments before a show starts when he prays that he didn’t waste his money and will watch a good show. Then towards the end of the show, just as the cast is about to sing their final note of a song, the power goes out and the theatre goes dark again.  There was a transformer issue in the apartment and the superintendent had been trying to phone Man in Chair throughout the day, with the constant ringing phone causing him all sorts of annoyances. When the problem is fixed and the lights come back on, the cast, who were frozen throughout this interaction come back to life and finish the final note. At other times, the record skips causing the actors to repeat a sentence again and again until Man in Chair gives the record a nudge. This is all very cleverly staged and the timing of the actors is impeccable.

Prior to the start of the show, we were given the usual pre-show preamble and then given the “content warnings” which went on for so long that we thought it was a joke.  We were advised to be prepared for sexual content, strong language, racial stereotypes, alcohol abuse, mentions of drug use and abuse, mentions of eating disorders, mentions of death, sudden loud noises, sudden bright lights possibly aimed at the audience, and haze.  It felt like we should have been handed a Bingo card to check off each occurrence.

We listened to the original Broadway soundtrack before attending this show and therefore noticed a significant change in lyrics in one of the songs. After the prerequisite “Boy loses girl” misunderstanding, Janet sings “The Bride’s Lament” as she regrets calling off the wedding.  Man in Chair warns the audience ahead of time to ignore the lyrics which “are not the best” and just listen to the beautiful tune, so we are prepared for some dumb lyrics. 

In the original lyrics, Janet sings “I put a monkey on a pedestal and trying to make it stay...monkey, monkey, monkey...” and then proceeds to wail on about her monkey.  In our version of the show, this has been changed to “bunny” along with a dance number where the chorus prances around with bunny ears.  I searched online to find out when and why this change was made. Apparently since 2020-2021, it was deemed socially unacceptable and racially derogatory to use the word monkey (a past slur against Blacks?) so future productions were changed to reference a bunny. While I understand why the lyric changes were made, I think doing so undercuts the forewarned and intended ridiculousness of the lyrics. Adding the chorus dancing with rabbit ears balances that out a bit since in the original torch song, there is no such choreography.

We really enjoyed this production of The Drowsy Chaperone and look forward to watching future shows produced by Shifting Ground Collective, especially if they end up developing original new Canadian musicals.