It took me a while to understand this prompt for this blog post, but I think I got it now so here goes.
The difference between choices for the play-within-the-play Drowsy Chaperone and the real Drowsy Chaperone is that the playwrights chose to add another play in the mix, abet "accidentally". In the musical The Man is listening to, never has a break that includes a very racist song. While that could be considered just a part of the story, but the playwrights chose to include this part and not as a part of the fictional musical. They could have made a number within the fictional show that was made from the same cloth, but it was only added to the meta-show part.
A second element that is different between the two plays is the motif. A motif in the play-within-the-play would obviously be monkey, but it is different in meta-narrative play. While it still has a monkey in it, it is not really shown in the outside world of the fictional play other than the note from The Man about it. A motif that applies to the whole play would be interruptions. There are many interruptions in both the fictional The Drowsy Chaperone and the narrative world of it. A good deal of them are caused by The Man himself, but some are caused by outside sources: the telephone, the scratching of the record player, the maid having put the wrong record in the wrong sleeve. It all leads up to the final interruption of the power going out. Even the final moment of the show, where The Man is ascended into the rafters, he has to pause his assent to grab the record.
I too had a hard time with realizing what this blog post was about. I made the assumption that the post was supposed to be made on The Drowsy Chaperone the musical being just the musical and not having the man featured where the Real DC is the play featuring the man within the musical and why the playwright feature him in it. I do like your point of the motif of the monkey! I didnt even notice this!
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