Tony Award winner Glover (Love! Valour! Compassion!) steps into the role of Man in Chair, the salty narrator and guide who shares his favorite Broadway cast album with the audience, playing it in his record player — and the show comes to life around him.
Glover (who is known as the duplicitous, evil Lionel Luthor on TV's "Smallville") replaces Bob Martin, the Canadian actor-writer who won a 2006 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Drowsy (he co-wrote it with Don McKellar). Martin was Tony nominated as Best Actor in a Musical for Man in Chair, too. He will re-create his work in the West End premiere this spring.
Sutton Foster, who originated the role of stage star Janet Van De Graaff in the new American production of the musical comedy that was first cooked up in Canada, exited the show April 15.
Taking over as Janet for three months (to July 29) is Janine LaManna (Sweet Charity, Seussical) before Mara Davi, who currently plays Maggie in A Chorus Line, takes the role permanently (on July 31).
Jo Anne Worley ("Laugh-In," The Prince of Central Park) joins the troupe as dowager Mrs. Tottendale, replacing Georgia Engel. *
Janine LaManna recently appeared as Nickie in the Broadway revival of Sweet Charity and was the quirky, earnest Gertrude McFuzz in Seussical.
Mara Davi, currently starring as the clarion-voiced Maggie in the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, appeared in the Encores! staging of Of Thee I Sing and starred as Peggy Sawyer in the U.S. and Japanese tours of 42nd Street.
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The Drowsy Chaperone is directed and choreographed by Tony Award nominee Casey Nicholaw (Spamalot), with music and lyrics by Tony Award winners Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and a book by Tony Award winners Bob Martin and Don McKellar.
In it, "To chase his blues away, a modern day musical theatre addict known simply as Man in Chair drops the needle on his favorite cast album — the 1928 musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone. From the crackle of his hi-fi, the uproariously funny musical magically bursts to life on stage. We are instantly immersed in the hilarious tale of a glamorous bride and her uproarious wedding day, complete with thrills and surprises that take both the cast (literally) and the audience (metaphorically) soaring into the heavens. Man in Chair's infectious love of The Drowsy Chaperone speaks to anyone who has ever been transported by the theatre."
The show is produced by Kevin McCollum, Roy Miller, Boyett Ostar, Stephanie McClelland, Barbara Freitag and Jill Furman. A London production launches in May (starring Bob Martin and Elaine Paige), and a North American national tour starts in the fall.
Visit www.drowsychaperone.com.
