The Drowsy Chaperone, 8/18 evening, brief thoughts

Agreed about Man in Chair. I saw Martin as Man in Chair back in January. While I haven't seen Glover live, I have looked at photos of him in costume. Something about Glover's appearance just doesn't exude warmth. He has a grim, grizzled look about him that doesn't suit the role. Does anyone else feel that way?

Today is Glover's last performance. Back to Smallville.

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I'm out of the loop. Who takes over Man In Chair after Glover?

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I hope you get a chance to compare Glover with some other Actors in the part. You might be able to make a report out of it. I didn't know if you were going to school still or graduated.

Glover did change some of his script and as someone said, it was his spin on it from his point of view. This was kind of why I wanted a Canadian in the role. Not that it is so different but the subtleties between the cultures do exist.

Have you listened to the CD yet? It has some of Bob's speaking parts on it and it is really funny. I think that Jonathan did a amazing job at capturing Bob's kookiness but they have been friends for a long time. I think it would be fun to play back a friends characteristics back at him. It didn't seem to lose too much between the two of them.

I am sure though, they can find another Man. Just hurry up and make it soon! I'm teasing. They are probably tearing their hair out, trying to find someone to play the part.

I am not familiar with the Actor Postergirl is talking about. You feel aright about him though right, Postergirl? I still would like to see Colm Feore or Don Mc Keller play the part. That would be so funny.

Colm was just in a play not too long ago with Denzil Washington. I bet that was good! This is more of a star position. I wish he would do it for awhile. He makes me laugh so much! The Man plays, "mad" oh so well.

Check out Slings and Arrows 2, you can rent it, then you will see what I mean.

I have seen Bob, Jonathan and John play MIC more than once. I enjoyed all three of them. I'm glad that Crombie and Glover didn't try to "copy" Martin. All three actors have gifts that they should be using to create a character, not simply repeating the original "vision" over and over again. How boring would that be?

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Andy Richter was Conan O'Brien's sidekick for several years. Then he left and had a hilarious sitcom, which the critics loved and no one watched (except for me and Craig and some other hardcore Andy Richter fans!) He also had an even-shorter-lived series recently.

I know that Andy had been approached, but I don't know ANYTHING else. He may have flatly said he didn't want to do it. I have no idea. We'll just have to wait and see!

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The actual script did not change in New York at all...with one exception. It turns out that Jonathan Crombie is allergic to Power Bars so they used Nutri-Grain Bars for him!

In London, where the script changed A LOT, they also used Nutri-Grain bars because (I was told) they don't have Power Bars over there.

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No lyrics have changed since the NYC opening. The London changes were in the opening monologue to place the show in london instead of NY. Also lines were added about Elaine Paige to make jokes about her height and supposed "difficulty" to work with (which apparently was nowhere to be seen).
The present script and score is very different from the Mirvish script, but the concept has really never changed since the toronto fringe.

Well now I'm completely confused, ticket - what Mr. Broadway song? The director of what? The songwriters were only in London for opening, so nothing major was done - only changing some keys and adding a few bars for Elaine Paige's entrance - all of which was done by the musical director during rehearsal.

Updated On: 8/21/07 at 11:16 AM

There were a lot of changes in London. I read an interview where Bob estimated that between 15-20% of the script was altered. I think that's about right.

I actually made a list of many of the changes after seeing the show in London several times. The premise of the show was the same, but a lot of the lines were different.

Just one example: "It all ends with an animated email on your birthday" was changed to "It all ends with your only copy of GYPSY flying across the room and smashing into a million pieces." (I'm paraphrasing, of course.)

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The show has already made back its money and probably earned a respectable investment. What more can anyone ask?

I enjoyed the show, though I felt its conceit wore thin by evening's end. Bob Martin was amazing as Man in Chair, but I don't know how much you can compare him with John Glover since Martin wrote the role for himself. It just might not be a fair comparison.

When I saw DROWSY, the audience was all grey-haired and discussing the AARP magazine during intermission. Eventually, shows just run out of old people. :)

By the way, they also run out of young people. THE WEDDING SINGER was all young people.
Broadway Blog: 50 Amazing Broadway Performers in 50 Weekdays

I do have you confused, I'm sorry postergirl. The Director is Casey Nicolaw. The songwriter is Lisa Lambert and the Actor who was signing autographs for me was Jonathan Crombie. I hope this helps you figure out the rest of what happened. I mentioned some of this back in April, so I thought you might remember.

Lisa and I'm not sure who helped her, wrote a song for the fundraiser, Mr. Broadway. I read it here, so that is where I first found out about it. Though Casey said they were working on "Drowsy", not to me but to Jonathan. I know some Directors like to keep a tight hold on their leading Actors, so maybe the work wasn't too important. I wasn't at the meeting later so I really can't judge it fairly. I was told she was also in town and she made a few appearances in support of "Drowsy" in NY. I didn't get a chance to meet her but they both told me she was still in town.
Other fans confirmed Lisa was in town, so I had no reason to doubt what he said.

Mr. Glover was in rehearsals when I was in NY and I was told his take on the role was different but very funny. I wanted to know if he was considering going on tour but was told he can't because of Smallville. I was probably one of the very few who didn't watch the show on television until later, so I didn't realize how big his part was before now. One of my Son's watches the show and wanted to know if he would come to SF, so I asked about his performance then.
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I guess, me2 missed that old post I made back in April about all the Teenagers who attended the show I went to! Maybe you were one of them? It could have just been the night you went? I do think it appeals mostly to those of us who grew up on Musicals when we were kids. Yet young people who enjoy musicals or want to be stage actors seem to like it too! They were really excited and made some of the Actors blush, that was funny. So, I know some kids liked the show.

I'm not offended but I don't have too much grey hair yet!

You can get grey hair in your twenties you know! So maybe that is good report after all! How exciting!

Well, the Man says it's intermission, though he talks all the way through it, complaining about intermissions, so it just might have seemed that way? I can see how that's confusing.