One show on Broadway has pulled ahead from the back of the pack, emerging as the unexpected hit of the season. Winner of five Tony Awards, The Drowsy Chaperone is currently playing at the Marquis Theatre. It is regarded by many as one of the best new musicals in recent years, both for its originality and traditional theatricality. The show’s concept is simple enough: A theatre buff sits in his drab, lonely apartment and reminisces about the theatre of yesteryear. He puts on his favorite album to demonstrate the classic nature of 1920s musical comedy, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way. As the record plays, the show comes to life in his apartment. The small, drab room is transformed into a full stage production where the apartment literally bends and opens onto a new world of classic theatre.
The show was originally produced in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson theatre last November and then moved to Broadway earlier this year. I recently spoke with co-lighting designer Ken Billington about his work on the show and how it has become a new spark on Broadway. Billington explains, “The producer talked to me about the play a year before we ever did it and I went to readings. It’s about a guy telling the story of his favorite music in his living room. When the director and set designers were all on board, we sat down and decided what the best way to tell this story was. How do we do it in this guy’s apartment, and how does a full Broadway musical happen in this little box set? We all started that way, came up with lots of ideas, some of which are onstage, some of which aren’t. We had to decide how to tell the story, and gently ease the audience into his fantasy.”
The Tony Award-winning set, designed by David Gallo, is ingeniously laid out. Using the standard furnishings in the apartment— such as the refrigerator and what looks like bedroom doors, alcoves and bookshelves— the set is continuously reshaped during the play, transforming into a hotel, bedrooms, a spa and a garden, through the ingenious unfolding or opening of existing cluttered areas. The apartment never leaves the periphery, yet it falls away into the background as the show evolves.
“A lot of it became his apartment, when the record isn’t playing and he’s telling the story. It’s just a dull drab apartment in the theatre district in New York. When he starts telling the story and puts the record on, all of the sudden his life gets more colorful and begins to brighten up. We start subtly, so as not to hit the audience over the head, as we have a long way to go with them. As he gets more into the show, more scenery appears, and as that happens we see more saturated lighting. So by the time you get to the middle of the show, which is the garden scene, we’re in full MGM Technicolor, because that’s what he thinks the show would be like. And he’s done such a good job of convincing us, that the audience believes him. But of course, when he takes the needle off the record, all that washes away and we’re back in his drab apartment. When he plays the record again, all the color comes back. It’s very clear, so in the second half of the show we don’t do that as much because the audience gets it.”
Putting on a Broadway-sized musical in a small, confined set is never an easy task. Billington says, “The technical problem was of course that there was very little room for lighting equipment. I had two pipes of back light, with a grand total of 12 Vari*Lite VL 2000s. So there was very little room with the scenery in place. Because of that I used seven different types of moving lights. On my first electric, which is nestled into the back of the portal, there wasn’t room for anything. An ETC Source Four wouldn’t fit, a Fresnel would barely fit, but a Vari*Lite VL 6 would fit. So my first electric is VL 6Cs and VL5s, the smallest lights made. Then I have some VL 2000s over head, some spots and washes, but at times they have to focus straight down so scenery can get by them. We had to write cues where they flatten out; it’s that tight.”
Billington goes on to describe his plot. “Upstage has some more 2000s, but I needed some hard-edged stuff so I put in VL 3000s because I needed the punch and the zoom. For side light, I put VL5s on the ladders. Out front I needed to deal with quiet and shutters so I have VL3500Qs, as well as four City Theatrical Auto Yokes for specials. So it was a big conglomeration of lighting equipment.”
Programming a lighting rig with so many fixtures can be a challenging situation, but was no problem for programmer Laura Frank, who used a High End Systems Hog iPC to control the system for the LA production. “It was my first iPC show. I have done Broadway shows on Hog PC with the widgets, but this was the first time out with iPC and I’m quite happy with it. I know there have been a number of stories floating around about its flaws, but I’ve never had a problem with it. I think it will offer the Hog 2 software a few more years of solid life, which is great news,” says Frank.
Hillary Knox came on board for the N.Y. production as a result of scheduling issues. Frank adds, “It was really great working with Ken, Brian, Stephen and my moving light tracker, Leah. It was also a huge comfort to know Hillary was going to be able to take over the show.”
The show was also co-designed by Brian Monahan, who was brought in by Billington due to some time constraints. “Brian has worked with me for 20 years and my schedule was very tight when we did the out-of-town, so I brought Brian on as codesigner because I knew I would have limited availability when they were in Los Angeles.”
Every show, especially a new musical, goes through changes from its out-of-town opening to its Broadway premier. Billington describes the changes: “From the show we did originally in LA, we took out the 20% or so that didn’t work so well, which was replaced when we got to New York. There used to be a whole dream ballet, which was cut because it didn’t work. Some songs were changed, dialogue changed, one set was changed, but the concept has remained exactly the same. I was able to transfer the lighting cues from the LA show disk. We cleaned it up and there you go.”
The show has seen a tremendous surge in popularity since its opening. It was nominated for a total of 13 Tony Awards, which was an unusually strong showing in a season that included shows like Jersey Boys, Tarzan and The Wedding Singer. Of those 13 awards, it won in the categories of set design, best book of a musical, best original score, best featured actress, and best costume design. According to Billington, “Audiences like it, and it’s all word of mouth. Ticket sales are going up because people walk out of the theatre having had a good time. You genuinely laugh for an hour and forty minutes. And in advertising, the one thing you can’t buy is word of mouth.” However it goes, this show seems like it has been truly embraced by the Broadway theatre- going community and will undoubtedly run for a long time.
