I recently saw The Drowsy Chaperone in Texas, at an incredibly small theatre. It was the second smallest stage I've ever seen in my life! I would say it was about nine feet across, at the most. What they did to accommodate this and allow the actors to move around was divide the stage into three levels, each connected by a ladder. It was amazing to see how the choreography changed around this - for example, in "Cold Feets", the guys tap danced up and down, sometimes with George and Robert on separate levels, sometimes on the ladders themselves. A lot of the times, when the Man In Chair wasn't directly putting himself in the scene, he would be on the bottom level, why the "actors" would be above him. And of course, "Show Off" and "Bride's Lament" took place with most of the dancers inside the aisles of the audience.

Of course, this led to a hilarious moment - during the "live/leave while you can" sequence, Adolpho was on the highest level, on the very edge. And when he dropped his cane, it actually almost went over the side. He had to scramble to pick it back up in time, which meant that he had to "accidentally" drop it again when the moment was repeated.

This got me thinking - has anyone else seen any staged versions of this show that are vastly different from the original? It's one of those shows where I think you can play around with the choreography and blocking quite a bit, and keep the original spirit well.