The Drowsy Chaperone, Showtimers

July 23 to August 9, Showtimers Community Theatre, Roanoke, 7:30 pm, 1 hour 45 minute run time, no intermission. 

I have to start with a quote from the show itself. This show "does what a musical is supposed to do! It takes you to another world and it..it gives you a little tune to carry in your head for...for...when you're feeling blue, you know?" That is exactly what the good folks at Showtimers have accomplished with The Drowsy Chaperone. 

I was not familiar with this show, but it's been around since 1998 and it won a bunch of Tonys on Broadway in 2006. It was written by Canadians, and it's just as wholesome and upstanding as you'd expect. That is, it's a parody of a 1920s musical, written much later. That's all I knew, going in: some kind of 1920s musical revival. But friends, I want you to know: there is a frame, and the frame story makes all the difference, in my opinion. 

At tonight's performance, at the beginning of the show, the lights went down and someone started talking in a charmingly neurotic way about the experience of going to the theater. That's when I realized this was not quite what I'd been led to expect. It's a narrator ("Man in the Chair," played by a heartfelt and hilarious Zane Schacht) who's about to share with us an LP of his favorite musical. He starts the music, and soon his apartment is transformed into a stage set, actors appear, and the musical begins, punctuated by his annotations and explanations along the way.

It's so helpful. Our narrator gives humorous backstory on the fictional 1920s actors behind the parts they play, comments on parts that make us cringe, points out the good bits, and offers morals such as the quote I began with. Without this, it would have been an entertaining show, but also vapid, moderately offensive, and hard to relate to. The narrator helps us embrace the brassy and the glitzy along with the beautiful and moving, because all of it enables the blissful escapism that he -- and we -- so clearly need.

Director Salena Sullivan has hit a home run with this production. She cast extremely strong actors and the production is polished and captivating. Sullivan announced at the beginning that she would have to be playing one of the parts herself, because the actor was unavailable. I must say it was wonderful to see the audience respond warmly to her performance. She was on book, but she still wholeheartedly participated in the dance numbers, including one where she needed to tap dance. A lot.

I should delay no longer in enumerating this show's delights. Yes, there was dancing. We need more dancing in our lives, especially tap dancing. The performers all did great with the dancing. The costumes were an utter delight, especially for the leading women. Kelly Anglin (who also plays Kitty) and Director Sullivan were listed as costumers - they deserve accolades for the amazing array of clothing on display in this production. The set and lighting were strong elements as well. The stage overall seemed a bit crowded - it's the sort of production where you really do need all 17 actors on stage at once - but they made it work. 

Auditorily, there were more strengths than weaknesses. I love the play's device of using the record player - it provides a great excuse for not having a live orchestra providing the instrumental accompaniment, plus some funny bits related to the record skipping. I was also impressed to see no microphones on any actors (unless I missed it?). I'm guessing there may have been some microphones on the set somewhere, but I didn't see them. It's a small enough theater that I think we may have been enjoying the actors' voices unamplified. Which is delightful, but it means that a few songs were a little hard to hear over the accompaniment ("As We Stumble Along" in particular). 

I'm not sure how to tell you which actors stand out, because they are all of a similar high quality. Even the smaller parts (how I loved the two gangsters, Jah Leftwich and Victoria Rogers!) were extremely well done. Kris Sorensen's Mrs. Tottendale was suitably dotty and charming and Nathan Bradley's Underling was stolid and winning. Jessica Hollingsworth shone brightly as Janet VanDeGraaf and Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf was a captivating Drowsy Chaperone. Laila Crutchfield brought joy and light when she finally arrived on the scene as Trix the Aviatrix, and Joel Gruver rose to the occasion well with his portrayal of the rather problematic character of Adolpho. I was going to pan Jacob Stockwell's portrayal of Robert Martin until I saw him sing, blindfolded, on roller skates (!). If anyone stole the show, it was probably Kelly Anglim's wonderfully ditzy Kitty, and her able foil, Elliot Raff as Feldzieg.

It's a fast-paced show. There is no intermission. It's over in the blink of an eye. But the main reason the time passes so quickly is because it's so incredibly well done. More than once I found myself unexpectedly uncomfortable in the mouth -- my teeth were oddly dry -- and then I realized it was because I had been grinning for way too long. It's that kind of show: you can't help but feel the infectious joy, identify with the narrator's need for escape, and fly away with the rest of the cast in Bessie Coleman's airplane. (I assume the part of Trix was a nod to Coleman.)

Go see it! Bring friends! It does all the things a musical should do, and you will not be disappointed.