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Getting 'Producers' on stages

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By David Burke | Saturday, July 19, 2008 11:14 AM CDT | () comments

I’m usually a pacifist when it comes to award shows, but I was pulling strongly for “The Producers” to do well at the 2001 Tonys — and it did, with a record-breaking dozen honors.

The reason? It justified, at least in my mind, a trip I had made to Chicago that January for a news conference with writer-producer Mel Brooks, director Susan Stroman and stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.

“The Producers” was having a pre-Broadway Chicago run, and I was there for an admittedly tenuous local connection (Stroman directed at Circa ‘21 Playhouse in Rock Island early in her career), but I later discovered several Quad-City area residents who trekked down Interstate 88 to see the show.

I’ve kept an eye on “The Producers” since then, watching its six-year Broadway run inevitably followed by a major national tour, then smaller-scale tours to secondary markets, including a stop at Davenport’s Adler Theatre in March.

Now comes the next step, when the rights for “The Producers” are snatched up by local companies. Timber Lake Playhouse, outside Mount Carroll, Ill., is the first in our region to grab the show, which has a 12-show run scheduled from July 31 to Aug. 10.

And Quad-City Music Guild claims the rights to the show next spring.

Both consider landing the Brooks musical — in which a wily producer teams up with a meek accountant to produce an intentional flop, “Springtime For Hitler,” and run off with the investors’ money — a coup.

“We try to do a balance of new, hot items with classics each year. New stuff also helps attract talent,” said Brad Lyons, the artistic director at Timber Lake and “The Producers” director. “It’s more fun for me, too. I’d rather do something I haven’t seen before or haven’t worked on before.”

Kevin Pieper of Music Guild said theaters get an e-mail as soon as shows can be considered by local companies.

“Typically, we try to get rights as shows are available,” he said. “We like to be the first to do things as well.”

Music Guild has had 17 area premieres over the past decade, he said, including Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” as soon as its rights were open.

Timber Lake has had regional debuts including “Cats,” “The Full Monty,” “Batboy” and others during Lyons’ tenure.

Pieper and Lyons said “The Producers” did not come with an exorbitant price tag for the rights. Timber Lake is paying about the same royalties percentage as for its other shows, and Music Guild will shell out about 10 percent more than the rights to other shows on its 2009 schedule, Pieper said.

Lyons said that, after scaled-back productions for “West Side Story” and “All Shook Up,” the rest of the budget is going to “The Producers,” making it Timber Lake’s most expensive show ever. (Ticket information is available at its Web site, Timberlakeplayhouse.org.)

While no decisions have been made by Music Guild beyond scheduling the title, Pieper said the spring show will break its traditional one-week run and is scheduled for the last weekend of March as well as the first weekend of April 2009.

Speaking for at least one musical fan, I’ll be looking forward to seeing versions of “The Producers” until I feel I have to drag myself to see Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom — again and again and again.