Curb Your Enthusiasm and Dreamcasting for the Producers.

[C.Jack]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 2:39am

I recently have been binging Curb Your Enthusiasm while quarantined to my home and finished the season wherein Larry David played Max Bialystock on Broadway. I honestly think he would have made a pretty good replacement for Nathan Lane based on the snippets we see of him in the episode. As The Producers is my favorite musical, I think we are overdue for a revival. As a fun little game, whatre some of your favorite dream casts for the Producers and how do you think Larry David would have done had he ended up actually playing Max on Broadway.

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 3:31am

I don't think he would be a good choice. He is a far better writer than performer. I will say, that the storyline he came up with for that entire season was nothing short of genius. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 9:06am

John Mulaney and Nick Kroll in either combination as Bialystock and Bloom, with Jason Mantzoukas as Franz, Fred Armisen as Roger and Andrew Rannells as Carmen.

I watched the Big Mouth live reading yesterday, so this is on my mind.

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 1:18pm

darquegk said: "John Mulaney and Nick Kroll in either combination as Bialystock and Bloom, with Jason Mantzoukas as Franz, Fred Armisen as Roger and Andrew Rannells as Carmen.

I watched the Big Mouth live reading yesterday, so this is on my mind."

Kroll as Bialystock and Mulaney as Bloom. This would be the most incredible thing ever and someone needs to get their agents on the phone NOW.

[C.Jack]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 1:33pm

Any ideas for Ulla?

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 1:38pm

If we're getting out of Big Mouth territory, Annaleigh Ashford? She was in John Mulaney's Netflix Special

[Hot Pants]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 2:08pm

First off, I think Larry David wouldn’t have made for a good Max in real life. While the role is a bit similar to David’s persona, you need someone whose more well versed in musical theatre to make it work.
I think this could be a pretty good cast:
Norbert Leo Butz as Max Bialystock
Ethan Slater as Leo Bloom
Christian Borle as Roger DeBris
Wesley Taylor as Charmen Ghia
Taylor Louderman as Ulla
Danny Burstein as Franz Liebkind (he’s also be a great Max)

[thedrybandit]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 2:40pm

Kroll as Max Bialystock
Mulaney as Leo Bloom
Rick Holmes as Roger DeBris
Rannells as Charmen Ghia
Burstein as Franz Liebkind

 

Not sure of anyone else but this group would be my picks.

[C.Jack]

Posted: 3/30/20 at 6:10pm

Anyone else like the idea of Alex Brightman as Bialystock?

[Alex M]

Posted: 3/31/20 at 3:07am

Mulaney and Kroll are incredible casting choices. I’d love billy eichner as Roger as well. Getting a whole cast of known comedians really would not only make this show a hit but also would probably be incredible. I have a headache thinking about how hard it would be to get tickets to this though lmao.

[C.Jack]

Posted: 3/31/20 at 8:44pm

Alex M said: "Mulaney and Kroll are incredible casting choices. I’d love billy eichner as Roger as well. Getting a whole cast of known comedians really would not only make this show a hit but also would probably be incredible. I have a headache thinking about how hard it would be to get tickets to this though lmao.
"
 

Love that Billy Eichner idea!!

 

[Hot Pants]

Posted: 4/1/20 at 9:55pm

C.Jack said: "Anyone else like the idea of Alex Brightman as Bialystock?"

He could be a great Max when he’s older. Max has to be played by a middle aged man.

[DoTheDood]

Posted: 4/1/20 at 10:10pm

thedrybandit said: "Kroll as Max Bialystock
Mulaney as Leo Bloom"

A bit of what Hot Pants said made me think of Gil and George from Oh Hello playing these roles. That's probably convoluted if ever done, but hilarious in theory.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 4/2/20 at 12:55pm

I think that, at best, there's a limited pool of people you could cast, because you could never really do it without Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. You can reinterpret Rose, you can do something new with the Emcee, there are even nuances in Tevye if you look hard enough, but these parts are like Streisand and Fanny Brice -- anyone else who does Funny Girl is living in Barbra's shadow, and that's just the truth.

And I'm not saying that as a purist. Jason Alexander, who played Max in L.A. and has talked about it at length, makes a similar point whenever he talks about it; he still acts like he's the outlier in not outright loving The Producers which ain't the case today (if it ever was), but aside from that, what he said really struck a chord, and it's informed how I view the show ever since I heard it.

He said he saw it with Lane and Broderick, he loved it -- in fact, preferred it to the source movie, which really is an outlier opinion -- but recognized its flaws (at least as far as he was concerned), and because of that he turned to his manager and wife who were with him and said, "Somewhere, some day, some time, they're gonna ask me to do this... would you please remind me that I don't want to do this show?" The reason was that he was, first and foremost (at least in his own mind), an actor, not a comedian, regardless of the kind of roles that became his mainstay; with The Producers, there was no subtext, no depth, that he could plumb. Like Spamalot, it was just the jokes, and jokes written in Mel Brooks' style at that.

His summation of the piece itself was what hit me:

"It's not a very good show. If you look at it, it's old jokes -- really old jokes -- and kind of mediocre songs. However, it was directed magnificently by Susan Stroman, and what she created was an opportunity for a bunch of actors that understand vaudeville/burlesque to have a field day. But you must lift that show up, you must infuse those jokes, you must make something out of those songs, and I'm here to tell ya... it's heavy lifting. [...] because it is jokes... jokes... there's not a lot of leeway in how to tell them. If you're gonna do the show [without ad-libbing and playing games with each other, as Nathan and Matthew did], you kinda have to tell those jokes the same way every time. The nice thing about the theater, when you really understand it, is... everyone says 'Oh, you have to do the same thing every night!' Well, you do but you don't; you're doing the same material, but you're having an exploration process every night. Not in The Producers. There's not a lot of ways to say 'I'M WEARING A CARDBOARD BELT!' [...] if you want to get the laugh. So it was more straight repetition, more mindless repetition, and in a lot of ways, it was not a fun gig."

That's what's so hard about dream casting for this thread, funnily enough, now that I have that stuck in my head. I wanna contribute, but I have no idea who would do something genuinely different with it, or if they even could.