Movie vs. stage version of 'The Producers'
Same wacky story, just a little more on the edge

Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Writer

The stage musical "The Producers" has plenty in common with the 1968 movie. Sections of dialogue are lifted intact; the two songs from the film ("Springtime for Hitler" and "Prisoners of Love") are transferred; and the cockamamie plot, characters, motivation and conflict are essentially the same.

The difference is one of amplification and pitch. Onscreen, "The Producers" was a twisted little black comedy with a brilliant premise. Onstage, "The Producers" is brassy, brazenly over the top and theatricalized in every way. Mel Brooks, a gifted composer and lyricist, has written 17 new songs.

Shticky business
Flashy touring production of 'The Producers' floats along on nostalgia, silliness

Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic

Broadway's biggest blockbuster of 2001 opened Wednesday at the Orpheum Theatre in a national touring production that has been making its way around the country since last fall. It's big, bright, brassy and -- hey, we're talking about Mel Brooks here -- very funny. It's tuneful, in a manner as retro as most of the humor, and engagingly staged, choreographed and performed.

'Springtime' for S.F.
BY LESLIE KATZ
Special to The Examiner

Heil, Mel!

If anyone can pull off joshin' the Nazis, it's movie maven Mel Brooks, the 2,000-year-old high priest (rabbi?!) of camp, and creator of "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein" and "The Producers."

It took Brooks some 30 years to fulfill a childhood dream of penning a Broadway musical, and oy, was it worth the wait. Based on Brooks' classic 1968 film, the full-blown stage production of "The Producers" -- the winningest show in Broadway history -- is in town at the Orpheum in a hysterical touring version that lives up to its 12 Tony Awards reputation.

Lane, Broderick returning to revive `Producers'

By MICHAEL KUCHWARA
The Associated Press

Broadway's original Bialystock and Bloom are coming back to "The Producers."

It was announced this week that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick will return to the Mel Brooks musical Dec. 30 for a limited engagement through April 4.

Bloom's Day: Canadian Staging of 'The Producers' Opens

By KENNETH JONES
Playbill

The Broadway smash, The Producers, makes its north-of-the-border debut, opening Dec. 11 after previews since Nov. 21 at the Canon Theatre in Toronto.

The Canadian company is settling in for what's expected to the be a long open-ended run. Bialystock and Bloom, the corrupt titular impresarios, are played by Seán Cullen and Michael Therriault, respectively.

The Producers, a crazy, wonderful, musical from Mel Brooks, opens in Toronto

By DIANE MENZIES
The Canadian Press

TORONTO (CP) - The Producers is just what Toronto needed, what with wars elsewhere and SARS (news - web sites), West Nile and blackouts here. It's frantic, it's vulgar, it's crass, sometimes even stupid. But, oh, is it funny.

The much-anticipated Mirvish production of Mel Brooks (news)'s smash hit opened Thursday evening at the Canon Theatre with an all-Canadian cast. And the man himself was there along with the city's political and cultural elite to enjoy the show. There were some men in tuxes and women in evening dress, but most were dressed more casually. This is definitely not the opera.

Return of Lane, Broderick makes 'Producers' hot again

By MICHAEL KUCHWARA
The Associated Press
January 2, 2004

New York- It's springtime for Broadway once more: Nathan and Matthew are back together again.

To roars of approval, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, the original stars of "The Producers," returned Tuesday night to the Mel Brooks musical at Broadway's St. James Theatre.

As soon as Lane, who plays charlatan producer Max Bialystock in the show, stepped out onstage, theatergoers started cheering.

When You've Got It, Flaunt It: Film Deal for 'The Producers'

By JESSE McKINLEY
The New York Times
January 7, 2004

Having conquered Broadway — twice — Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane have now signed on to star in a new movie version of "The Producers," Mel Brooks's hit musical based on his 1968 film.

The deal, first reported yesterday in Daily Variety, marks the latest incarnation of "The Producers," which began as a film comedy starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, was reimagined as a Broadway musical in 2001 starring Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick and is getting a third life as a musical film.

Being Bialystock

By DESMOND RYAN
The Philadelphia Inquirer
January 11, 2004

Leo Bloom: Let's assume, just for the moment, that you are a dishonest man.

Max Bialystock: Assume away.

- "The Producers," 1968
With Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick just now back for a top-selling, three-month return engagement as Bialystock and Bloom in The Producers, the laughter and uproar in St. James Theatre are louder and longer than ever.

But 35 years ago - a block north on the stage of an empty Plymouth Theater - the same merry banter of conniving flopmeister Bialystock and his hapless partner Bloom produced nothing but angry arguments and explosions of temper.

Mel Brooks, understandably anxious in his first outing as a movie director, had taken over the Plymouth to film a debut that would ultimately occupy a secure place on the short list of great American comedies. He wanted a broadly drawn portrait of Max Bialystock.

Strapped in the saddle

By JOHN MOORE
The Age
January 7, 2004

Mel Brooks, whose vivid mind created The Producers.

Never in the history of the world (Part 1) would a brash Jewish kid named Melvin Kaminsky ever believe his silly little romp featuring Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun dancing at Berchtesgaden might one day be included among the 350 movies selected to the US Library of Congress' National Film Registry.

And only in a space-balls kind of a universe could a musical version of that same story become the most honoured show in Broadway history 33 years later.

"It shows a serious lapse of taste on the part of the people who give you these Tonys," joked a self-effacing Kaminsky, better known as Mel Brooks, who, at 77, is one of the few entertainers to have won Academy, Grammy, Emmy and Tony awards.

"I think they should know better. But I'll take it . . . you know, it's free."

Déjà Nu? Stars Return, Now Spoofing Their Spoof

By BEN BRANTLEY
The New York Times
January 12, 2004

These guys are as loose as a pair of all-night jammers in a jazz club, trading licks at 3 in the morning. Sure, they've done their numbers hundreds of times before. But they understand that if you're talented enough, you can always make an old song sound new. Especially if you've got the right partner and an audience predisposed to cherish every move you make.

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, the once and current stars of the Broadway musical "The Producers," are a shade cooler than when they created their roles two and a half years ago. Granted, they're burning energy on a solar level as they resume their former parts, Max Bialystock (Mr. Lane), the gloriously greedy showman, and Leo Bloom (Mr. Broderick), Max's timid accomplice in fraud.

Yet while they play their characters impeccably, they also play around with them, goofing on them in sly, easygoing ways that never tear at the show's glossy fabric.

Producers behind The Producers

By ROBIN USHER
The Age
February 13, 2004

John Frost might be the most successful producer in Australia, but he declares that he is the last of a special breed that rose to the top after a career of producing theatre shows by the seat of its pants. "Young producers today just won't have the sort of experience that I had," he says.

Headdresses, heels and hoopla

By JO ROBERTS
The Age
February 14, 2004

All English-born choreographer Warren Carlyle can remember of The Producers' opening night in New York in 2001, is "the terror" he felt before the curtain went up. "I just wanted everyone to do great," he recalls.

...

The Australian cast is the fifth he has coached, having trained the New York cast, two American touring companies and a Toronto cast.

Broadway Queen in town

By JO ROBERTS
The Age
February 18, 2004

They sat before her like attentive, wide-eyed children on their first day of school, hanging on her every word.

...

"You are all special," she said. "Everyone here is an individual and that's what makes The Producers work. You can make it your own."