Broadway Dinner Theatre to Kick Off 2011 with THE DROWSY CHAPERONE

As the 2011 Season is fast approaching, The Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre has announced that it will add yet another regional premiere to its list of theatrical credits. Opening the theater's 17th Anniversary Season will be the over-the-top musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone, opening January 21st.

A rare combination of unprecedented originality and blinding talent, The Drowsy Chaperone boldly addresses a great unspoken desire in all of our hearts: to be entertained. If you've ever sat in a dark theatre and thought, "Dear Lord in heaven, please let it be good," this is the show for you! It all begins when a die-hard musical theater fan plays his favorite cast album on his turntable, and the musical literally bursts to life in his living room, telling the rambunctious tale of a brazen Broadway starlet trying to find, and keep, her true love. Full of fun and over-the-top characters -- a bride who's giving up the stage for love, her dim but debonair bridegroom, a producer who sets out to sabotage the wedding, bumbling gangsters posing as pastry chefs, a flakey chorus girl, a Latin lothario and of course the drowsy chaperone -- The Drowsy Chaperone is a tribute to the early days of Broadway and is ready to, not only make its Western Maryland regional debut, but take it's place as Way Off Broadway's season-opener.

"We are very excited to be able to premiere another new show here in Frederick," says Bill Kiska, Way Off Broadway's Executive Producer. "Billed as a ‘musical within a comedy,' The Drowsy Chaperone is a five time Tony Award-winning musical that is a loving tribute to the early days of Broadway."

The Drowsy Chaperone takes the place of the previously announced Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat after the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, the agents representing Andrew Lloyd Webber's works in the United States, said a potential tour of the show may be launching, thereby eliminating the rights for Joseph for regional productions.

Way Off Broadway's production of The Drowsy Chaperone will run from January 21 - March 19, 2011. Casting for the show will begin shortly.

For information about the theater's current Mainstage production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrel or The Children's Theatre's Charlotte's Web, or the upcoming interactive murder mystery event, American Icon: This Competition is Murder!, visit www.wayoffbroadway.com or contact the theatre at (301) 662-6600.

The Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre has been a leader in the region's performing arts community since it first opened in 1995. Under the direction of the Kiska Family since 2002, WOB has produced such productions as A Funny Thing . . . Forum, Guys & Dolls, Steel Magnolias, Oklahoma!, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, The Odd Couple, A Chorus Line, The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Evita, and Cats, as well as the regional and area premieres of Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl - The Musical, Jerry Herman's La Cage aux Folles, the musical comedy The Wedding Singer, and Mel Brooks' The Producers. Located along Route 40 West, the Golden Mile in Frederick, the theatre also produces a one-of-a-kind children's lunch theatre, as well as countless special events throughout the year. Way Off Broadway's 2011 Mainstage Season features The Drowsy Chaperone, Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, Hairspray, Chicago, and Christmas Tidings.