The Drowsy Chaperone, Zach Theatre, June 24 - August 1

When I got home, still bubbling from Zach's The Drowsy Chaperone, I was ready to write, "Run, don't walk, to the Zach box office to get your first set of tickets for this sparkling evening of music, comedy and light-hearted fooling, a clever reincarnation of Broadway at its wonderful beginnings."

That's hyperbole, of course. Because you don't need to run anywhere. You just tap zachtheatre.org into your browser, click a couple of times and give them your payment details.

I must have been hearing Walter Winchell or Hedda Hopper in my head, even though I'm far too young ever to have listened to the Broadway gossip on a crystal radio set or on a cabinet-sized Philco in the living room. Though I can remember, just barely, the advent of the first color television broadcasts.

The Drowsy Chaperone is a zinger because Lambert, Morrison, Martin and McKellar lovingly spoof those energetic, naive and amazing beginnings of what became American musical theatre, admired across the world, while giving us a contemporary moderator and chorus -- in the Greek sense. Martin Burke as the anonymous Man in the Chair hosts us for an evening alone in his apartment with LP recordings of that mythical 1928 musical.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .