The Drowsy Chaperone pays tribute to the Jazz-age shows of the 1920s and the power those shows held to transport us into a dazzling fantasy and to lift our spirits in times of sadness. The audience is greeted by the narrator, Man in Chair, sitting on a darkened stage. He is a fan of vintage musicals who seems to be suffering from free-floating depression, and he quickly decides to cheer things up by playing a record of the original cast recording of a (fictional) Broadway musical entitled "The Drowsy Chaperone". No sooner has the needle touched the record than we, together with the narrator, are transported to a 1928 Broadway theater and into "The Drowsy Chaperone", a play-within-a-play crammed full of every cliché, gag and gimmick from the golden age of musicals.
