There’s much ado these days about a Canadian musical, Come From Away, making it big on Broadway and scooping a Tony Award for direction earlier this month.

But what many people forget, or don’t know, is that just over a decade ago, another subversive little Canuck musical pulled off the same magic. Written by Bob Martin and Don McKellar as a wedding present to Martin’s wife, it was first staged off the beaten track in Toronto’s storied Rivoli bar back in 1998. A long, winding, and unlikely path led it to the bright lights of Broadway by 2006, nabbing it five Tony Awards and the chance to go on to England, Australia, and Japan.

All that, says veteran musical director and actor Gillian Barber, makes her staging of The Drowsy Chaperone at Theatre Under the Stars this year an apt nod to Canada’s big anniversary.

“We did want to piggyback on the 150th birthday by celebrating Canada and its own uniqueness,” she tells the Straight from her Vancouver home before heading to the park for rehearsals, “and the uniqueness of this story really fascinated me as an individual. Drowsy Chaperone was huge at the time!”

The offbeat play-within-a-play is not your regular Theatre Under the Stars musical either (though it alternates in repertory this summer with the classic Mary Poppins). As Barber puts it: “I did Jesus Christ Superstar here [in 2008] and that was another darker piece. I am a director who doesn’t shy away from darkness.”

In The Drowsy Chaperone, a middle-aged, semi-depressed character known only as Man in Chair tries to chase the blues away by listening to his favourite guilty pleasure: a fictional 1928 musical called The Drowsy Chaperone. In his dreary New York apartment, the glitzy story comes to life, rife with all the stock characters of the golden age of musicals: a pampered Broadway starlet, her debonair groom, a Latin lover, a gangster duo who double as pastry chefs, and more. It’s a hilariously clever parody of the form, but also a loving tribute to its transportive powers that speaks to musical-theatre geeks everywhere.

“Shawn Macdonald, who plays Man in the Chair, and I had so many discussions about how the play is a reflection of his thoughts and also his most desired dream—to have love come to him,” Barber says. “Man in the Chair, he’s actually the director; his imagination is what’s making them dance. He says at the beginning he’s never seen the musical, only heard it.”

For Barber, who directed a 2014 version of The Drowsy Chaperone at Capilano University, where she helped found the musical-theatre program, the 1920s just continue to hold an allure.

“I’ve always said I was born in the wrong era,” the busy film and stage actor says with a laugh. “Funny enough, I’ve directed so many shows set in the 1920s it feels like I’m coming home.”

What she learned from the previous staging and is digging into more this time is that, even though The Drowsy Chaperone has elements of a larger-than-life musical, it needs real emotional grounding to work—especially with Man in Chair. “It all has to be real. You start with it based on truth and then put in the comedic elements. It’s worked really well layering it, I would say.”

That means the show is the ultimate triple-threat musical, demanding acting chops as well as Jazz Age singing and dancing skills. Three Equity actors, including the well-known local comedic actor Macdonald, head the Drowsy cast. But as in its seven-plus decades at the historic Malkin Bowl stage in Stanley Park, TUTS stands as the ultimate training ground for emerging musical-theatre stars, says Barber, who sits on the board and runs its educational committee.

“We love for our students to work with TUTS because it really is a microcosm for us,” she says of her rising Cap U talents. “If you can work on that outdoor stage and hold one great single note and breathe in a bug, then you can perform anywhere. The moths really are scary out here!”

Theatre Under the Stars alternates The Drowsy Chaperone with Mary Poppins from Saturday (July 8) to August 19 at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park.