The marketing tag line was, of course, not our creation. Our original tag line, one the New York producers could neither understand nor endorse, was “you’ll swear you’ve heard it before”. Now, would anyone buy a ticket to a show with that tag line? We’ll never know. Thank you for your thoughtful and frankly fascinating interpretation. And yes it is an incredible lonely experience rehearsing and performing the role of Man In Chair.

Playing man in chair was such an emotional experience. This video is so amazing. I watch it every year and always learn something new from it.

This has fundamentally changed my worldview, or at least put into words something I've felt but struggled to articulate about how performing arts are different from static ones. I'm relatively new to being a fan of live theatre and the dynamic vs static distinction is a game changer. The way a piece of theatre isn't just a work, it's an action that everyone takes to keep it alive, and performing it every night means it needs to be worth endorsing. This essay is masterful.

I've always thought it was impressive that THE DROWSY CHAPERONE, a bright comedy with lots of silliness, also has a climactic monologue about Man in Chair's past marriage that's genuinely deeply felt and touching. It's lovely that the writers cared enough to do that kind of work. "...this is a wedding after all and that's exactly what you think when you're standing at the altar, isn't it, 'Live' or 'Leave' and you have to live. Because you do love her in some way. It's not an exact science. An arrow doesn't come down out of the sky and point to the one you're supposed to be with. So, one day you say it to someone, you say, 'I love you' and you basically phrase it as a question, but they accept it as fact and then suddenly there she is standing in front of you in a three-thousand-dollar dress with tears in her eyes, and her nephew made the huppah, so what do you do? Do you say I was kidding, I was joking? No, you can't! You live, right? You choose to live. And for a couple of months you stare at the alien form in bed beside you and you think to yourself 'Who are you? Who are you?' And one day you say it out loud... then it's a trial separation and couples counseling and all your conversation are about her eating disorder and your Zoloft addiction, and you're constantly redefining and re-evaluating and revisiting before you finally lose the deposit on the house and the whole 'relationship' ends on a particularly ugly note with your only copy of GYPSY spinning through the air and smashing against the living room wall. But still, in the larger sense, in a broader sense, it's better to have lived than left, right?"

The line about the Man in Chairs of the world obsessing over shows for years finally seeing the show they love only to be confronted by the problems in it they've forgiven it for.....ouch, that one hit home. I'm so glad I found this video. There's not enough deep dive analytical videos on theatre, the same way there are on movies and games and such, so I was delighted by this. This is one of those rare but wonderful analytical pieces that goes beyond exploiting nostalgia for clickbait but actually digs down far enough to uncover some gold, and in doing so enhances one's appreciation for the cherished original work.

I just closed a production of Drowsy with the Youth Theater group I'm in. I played MIC, though as Woman In Chair (as an open lesbian who just had a disastrous marriage to another woman). It's really interesting and meaningful to hear from someone who had such a similar experience as me in performing this show (I'm the same age you were when you played MIC). And especially after having watched this the first time just before auditions, there is such a wonderful meaning to be found in MIC's arc. Thank you for also taking Drowsy and Chair seriously. My favorite moment was backstage of opening night after the show, when my cast mates were coming up to me remarking how shocked they were that the "Live or Leave" monologue got laughs from the audience. Which was confirmation to me that I had successfully brought them into thinking about the real drama and turmoil of Chair's life. I think the show really hinges on the audience connecting with the actor playing MIC, and to the real person to be found under all their quips and comments. Thank you so much for your super unique and cool interpretation of this show. You really opened my eyes to an exciting (and endorsable) way of playing this character. And you have really interesting ideas about Static versus Dynamic art. You and your content are awesome! ps. we replaced "Message from a Nightingale" with "With Catlike Tread" from Pirates of Penzance, making the interruption embarrassing to Chair in a different way (having the pirates very much giving the almost burlesque energy of the 80's revival).

I'm just finding this channel now and I have no idea how you don't have way more views. I can so relate to the nostalgia of musical theater, I feel like its the main thing pushing me towards still loving this genre. Even when I relate highly to new musicals, its the revivals of old ones that draw me in the most.

Thank you for this. I discovered Drowsy when my cousin played MIC in my home town, and to say it had an intense effect on me would be an understatement. I sourced every bootleg, and read every interview and behind the scenes piece. I had my own thoughts on it but also became consumed by the takes and perspectives of others and what they took from the piece. Basically, I became a bit of a Man in Chair about it. As a queer, Autistic person, it's not hard to see why. I think it's extraordinary. And I hope with the sequel, a love and appreciation for the og is reignited.

your channel was one of those youtube recommendations that really payed off. this video was very good!

If I knew how to write you an email, I would as I don’t want to run on forever. I’ve watched this entire video twice. Because. For the life of me, I could NOT figure out why I loved Drowsy Chaperone so much, and why it had joined my top 3 musicals list. Along with The Music Man and Carousel. But you’ve totally nailed it. I just retired after 42 years of band directing. Until I was a junior in high school I wanted to be a drama teacher. My standard reason as to why I love those three musicals before I saw your video or I guess my defense of loving them in spite of their “problems” is that I looked at them as period pieces. But instinctively I knew I WASN’T looking at them as static art. I grew up going to musicals in Fort Worth at Casa Manana. I have conducted and played in pit orchestras for decades. I’ve felt that the line you obsess about during Robert Martin dancing to “Cold Feet” could easily be changed to “a song an old soft shoe dancing man taught me” without any problem. When I looked at your Twitter page (and I don’t “do” Twitter - I still don’t get it…) I see you are no longer in the PNW but in Chicago. A bummer. I’d love to meet you for coffee or a glass of wine sometime to talk about musicals. I think you are one person younger than 30 who wouldn’t mind picking the brain of a 65 year old musician that had a very unusual life growing up. Anyway. I will FOREVER be grateful to you for this analysis and how it has helped me unlock my understanding of my love for this musical. I can’t sing, but my bucket list has on it - I would just love to do the role of the Chaperone one time and belt out “As We Stumble Along”. Please do more of these videos. Please.

And thanks for the Slings shout out.

I never played Man in Chair but I actually have a really similar experience playing Ms Tottendale in my junior year's production of Drowsy. I don't know why this crept up on my recommended videos now, but I'm sure glad it did. Thank you for helping me feel less alone.

So glad I found this! I'm doing 'Man In Chair' next month, and your video has done a lot to inform my performance. Thank you!

The fact that the Canadian alternative to an American bachelor party is to write your boy a musical is the most Canadian thing I've ever heard.

I really appreciate hearing your interpretation. Maybe I've spoiled my experience by watching this video without ever having watched The Drowsy Chaperone itself; but you've also successfully convinced me to spend the time and effort to seek it out and consume it, which might not have happened otherwise. (I stumbled on your video because I was following a thread of commercially-successful Canadian musicals, after having recently taken my mom to see Come From Away in Seattle. So I had no prior awareness of or motivation to watch Drowsy, other than an appreciation for Don McKellar's work.) I'm excited to check out your other videos!

This whole video was absolutely fantastic, and as someone who crewed on a production right before the pandemic hit, WOW did part 7 clock me in the face. Loved seeing your footage, and loved hearing your love for the show. (Also love your outfits!!)

I am currently playing MIC in my high schools production of this show, and I relate to this video on a personal level. All I can say is thank you

I feel that its important to mention that the show has had multiple changes implemented over the years. The production that I watched recently completely cut the wrong record scene and replaced the monkey with the bunny, not because they wanted to, but because the script/licensing called for it. The show itself has also adapted with the times while still somehow remaining relevant, and I think that that further illustrates your message. This show truly is timeless, and man in chair really is a character to think about because even with those changes, the idea and universality of his character still remains.

I honestly hadn't thought of your perspective, I was introduced to Drowsy in 2017 (I think) when I needed to get another live theater review in for my literature of theater class, so I snagged two tickets to a community theater production an hour away from me, I loved (still do) musical theater, but Drowsy blew my mind. I left the theater feeling...blue. What always struck me with the ending, is that Man in Chair is an unreliable narrator, one of the most depressing things I've heard in a musical is Man in Chair's confession at the end that he has never actually seen the show. We have been taking his word at what each song represents in the show. He has pieced version of the story together through countless listens and what he knows about it, but he doesn't have the dynamic experience to tell us the story. The show could be better or worse than he can tell us, of course the spit take scene is lame, I'm sure I'm not alone in cringing at cast albums keeping in large amounts of dialogue, it doesn't work in a static since, out of context of the complete story. The monkey motif is labored, because he has only heard the few references to the groom being called "monkey". Man in chair has such a bleak outcome, to want, so badly to share something he loves with others only to be faced, not only with the social flaws of the show but that, in and of itself it is not a good show, the jokes and themes are lame and labored. Yes, he gets frustrated with the constant interruptions, but I see the man give up by the end, he has worked so hard to keep the immersion alive through the interruptions, the skipping record, the intermission, and one last interruption is too much. He doesn't have the will to let us hear the last note of the last song, for moment he considers starting the record over so we can be re-immersed in the story, but now he's too blue, a feeling at the beginning of the show was exactly what drove him to play it for us. Now he can't

the way man in chair feels about The Drowsy Chaperone is the way me and many other autistic feel about their Special interests.

Really enjoyed your analysis! I watched this about a week ago, and a week later, I was cast as MIC! Also found out @Bob Martin and I were born almost exactly one year apart! Guess it was meant to be! Can't wait to embark on this journey❤

Thanks for creating this video; it was fascinating, and enhanced my enjoyment of Drowsy.

I worked on a production of The Drowsy Chaperone as a high school student and while the production was a bit of a train wreck I did enjoy it at points and it is one of the shows I look back on the most. Comparing it to the following show Oklahoma it ironically was the show among the troop had the most ambiguous reputation since the veterans had a blast with it but the new faces were kinda underwhelmed by it. Ironically we kept most of the questionable content with the sole exception of a monologue from the Man in the Chair which was deemed too iffy to left in.

This is simply incredible. I loved the creativity and personal connections so much. And even with an hour long video, (his queerness, escapism/coping mechanisms, his loneliness) weren't fully explored, just showing how layered the show really is. You really went into depth with this topic and I appreciate the effort you put into it. I was thinking to myself as I started watching that you were giving a bit of Man-In-Chair vibes throughout the video, and then the footage of you in the role showed up and I was shocked. Sunday is also one of my favorite shows so I was excited to see you liked both as well!! Drowsy is weirdly overlooked in terms of fanbase size, despite how many productions still get put on of it.

This video made me gain a LOT of love and respect for this show. ❤

This was an absolutely lovely video and I appreciated the deep dive.. I also think it's also interesting who gets the ability to wrestle with if a show shouldn't change as times change. Most often it's rarely the people actually effected by said offensive material that campaign for problematic shows to never change.

this is the best youtube video i've ever watched

it is criminal that this video has so few views

I want to play man in chair someday (or be woman in chair for that matter) and I wanna explain the tragedy that man had faced and I just wanna break down crying while playing the role idk why

Just finished doing the sound tech for drowsy at my high school and I want to stay in this moment forever, I don’t want to shut the lid but it’s over and besides my wishes it’s shut. So thank you for letting my experience something to do with this show again. 48:11

Deserves. More. Views.

Thank you for this amazing analysis of the drowsy chaperone and so many other things. I saw this play probably 15 years ago at the Speakeasy Theater company in Boston And really enjoyed it. By no means did I go through the analysis that you did. But then again I am now 70 years old and I do have nostalgia for Broadway plays that are funny and include great songs and performances. I then became reacquainted with the Tony awards recording of Sutton Foster singing, dancing, and doing gymnastics in her signature song. And I've watched that many times. And now that I've heard your analysis I want to see another production. I don't think that the Sutton Foster production is available full length anywhere, but if you know that it is, or any other production, please let me know. And by the way, I think my first musical Tash that I learned through the soundtrack recording of the movie- was The music Man. When I was 8:00 or 9:00 I knew all the songs And even the song on the train I knew by heart and sang all the parts. I'm glad we share a love for both of these plays! ❤

I always felt, I was the man in the chair.

based on this video and the comments, i’m glad to hear that performing in drowsy as a kid and then becoming extremely nostalgic later on is a common experience. also: one of my favorite memories of being in community theater was when i was having my lunch break and the director was teaching the actor for robert martin to roller skate while “accident waiting to happen” played in the background. i’m not sure why, but i felt so happy in that moment and i always find myself thinking back to it

I'm only halfway through but this is such a great video so far

After listening to your video, I'm wondering what you thought about some like it hot. I think I went to see it because it was sort of an old fashioned Broadway musical, like 42nd Street or some such thing. I thought the sets and the colors were absolutely amazing. I love some of the characters and some of the music and some of the dancing, but having said that, I felt like I was watching something that was fake nostalgia. Did you see it? And if so, what did you think? By comparison, merrily we roll along, and last year's company, did not feel like nostalgia at all but like totally contemporary, virtuosic pieces. Would love to know if you saw those and what you thoughts are.

YOU GET IT

Okay, a friend of mine introduced me to this channel via the Winnie the Pooh video, and I have to say that I am so very happy they did. That being said, as an Indigenous person, I have a lot of thoughts about this topic. 1. I always felt like Drowsy Chaperone didn't know the difference between making jokes about being rac!st and just flat out being rac!st because the kind of people who it was written by are ....not exactly the most self aware people in the world. It was written as a wedding reception gag that evolved into a full blown production (and in many ways never lost the "made by our friends" energy). I do enjoy the show quite a lot, but there is a certain level of smugness and lack of self-awareness. The other thing I wanted to bring up was Adolpho, who was played on Broadway by someone who was half Costa Rican. That accent he did was informed, clearly based on a relative he knew. I know that whole character is "supposed to be offensive, " but it's a whole new level of cringe knowing that post the OBC, actors are making some...pretty questionable decisions. 😬

Wow - wonderful analysis! I suggest you read Bruce Kirle's "Unfinished Show Business." Among many issues he discusses is that all theater works (musicals, plays, operas, etc.) are products of their time and thus have created a relationship with events of that time. To have a meaningful revival, one has to mine such works for the ways in which a contemporary audience will be able to connect and (hopefully) achieve catharsis. Clearly a pure re-creational revival will not achieve this. The creative team has to find elements that connect with the political and social events of contemporary life. (Some people have remarked that Hamilton has now lost its efficacy since Trump is no longer in office.) (One can make a partial exceptions for intentionally historical recreations of what is thought to be performance style of different eras - this is something seen more in opera than in musical theater.) I'm sorry you didn't explore more deeply the Man-in-Chair's sexuality. As portrayed by Bob Martin, at the outset he has some stereotype characteristics of a gay man, but we heard allusions to his married life to assume "oh, he must be straight." Over the course of the musical our understanding of Man-in-Chair's relationship deepens, becoming darker and downright depressing as we understand he was a closeted gay man who's had an very unsuccessful straight relationship and (as far as we know) no gay relationship and seems to be anti-social in general. This is *in counterpoint* to the Drowsy Chaperone plot which lays on the heterosexuality with a quadruple wedding (all of those relationships being highly improbable). And the cherry on the cake is Trix: a lesbian (I think should be played as a butch dyke) who enables that heterosexual happiness - a more pointed if indirect condemnation of Man-in-Chair's social failures. So Man-in-Chair's only happiness comes from his one successful relationship: to the record album. The Broadway production didn't emphasize this, but I see one of the school productions ends with the Drowsy Chaperone character handing Man-in-Chair back his record album which he hugs (she could kiss the album before handing it to him). It's a wonderful and very sad interpretation. I suppose it works in part because it's something everyone can relate too, even the most sociable among us. Thank you again for a wonderfully deep and though-provoking video - and I also love Drowsy Chaperone.

Quite enjoyed your analysis and presentation. Much food for thought. However, the unnecessary piano music behind much of the last 3 sections was so loud and intrusive that I had trouble watching to the end. Can you dial that back at all, at this point?

i just did this show two days ago

I saw the show in kirkland!! My friends were in it in a later production

to contextualize i am autistic .musicals is one of my special interest and i know a big collection of old recordsm

I know I'm here for some very specific claims, but I'm curious about your choice to label video games a static art. >w>

I'm so glad you put it into words - the implied endorsement of performing a show is one reason why I don't want to audition for some things. The first show I ever did as an adult was Anything Goes, with the racist end scene not only kept but LEANED INTO (hated it, complained, nothing was changed) and I hated thinking about anyone in the audience having to see that, let alone leaving the theater with that awful last scene as the final impression of the show. I will only audition and take part in shows that I can endorse by being in it, and that is shockingly limiting in the community theatre scene, though not entirely. Not to mention how they don't let you change anything in the script, so a homophobic or transphobic joke from 10 years ago "HAS" to stay in.

The stuff I like is objectively great so.

I love your outfit so dang much

The licensing company has struck Message From A Nightingale, and monkey is now bunny.

Drowsy Chaperone has always been about nostalgia to me. As someone with parents who regularly performed in shows, I grew up immersed in musical theater. I spent a large portion of my childhood doing my homework in the back of a theater during dress rehearsals. I grew up watching My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, The King and I, and Hello Dolly on VHS tapes. The first time I saw Drowsy Chaperone, I was a kid watching a high school production (my dad was in the orchestra pit). I didn’t understand *everything* about it, but I recognized my parents and their love of musicals in Man In Chair. And now that I’m an adult, I find myself getting very excited to show my partner a bootleg KZfaq recording of a show I remember loving as a kid, only to feel mortified to realize that the main romantic subplot is about getting a woman drunk enough to sleep with you and then framing that as romantic. (Looking at you, Sky Masterson!) Every time I revisit the shows I loved as a kid, I am viscerally reminded of Man In Chair. That’s me, that’s my parents, that’s like half of the kids in my school’s theater department. I’ve never seen a show do a better job at capturing what it’s like to love old Broadway shows while also cringing when you look at them through a modern lens. I have trouble even imagining that anyone could watch Drowsy Chaperone and NOT interpret it that way. By the way, your discussion about changing the script to be able to endorse the work reminded me of a production I saw of Thoroughly Modern Millie, where the actors playing the Chinese kidnappers were Asian and spoke accurate Mandarin Chinese, and one of them even disobeyed his boss to rescue Miss Dorothy after falling in love with her. At the end she might’ve even married him instead of the boring rich dude, I don’t remember. Those changes certainly didn’t fix ALL the problems with the show, but they sure did make it less downright offensive! It also absolutely ruined the movie for me, haha. I’m sure most theater fans have run into at least one show that made changes like this. Overall this is a really good analysis, and speaks to a lot of the underlying conflict between nostalgia and modern sensibilities in the theater world. Really great video!

Another SITPWG lover! Oh yes!

33:08

DROOD MENTION W

i headcanon man in chair as autistic and the whole show is him inpdoumping.