A New Mel Brooks Musical. Adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks’ 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics by Brooks and music by Brooks and Glen Kelly. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by overselling interests in a Broadway flop. Complications arise when the show unexpectedly turns out to be successful.
The original production opened on Broadway on April 19, 2001, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and ran for 2,502 performances, winning a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. It spawned a successful London production running for three years, national tours, many productions internationally and a 2005 film version.
Only a true misery guts could pick faults in Patrick Marber’s revival of Mel Brooks’s The Producers. Expanded in scale and transferred from a run at the Menier Chocolate Factory last Christmas, it delivers one belly laugh after another. And still, there is so much more to this production than good, old-fashioned tomfoolery. Sewn together with an unceasing ability to laugh at itself, it is a musical as radical and joyously subversive as when it first appeared on film in 1967.
Marber is, of course, well regarded as a playwright and director, but his roots are in comedy, the genre where he cut his teeth. He saturates this slick musical comedy with a wealth of physical gags, exquisitely timed double takes and an expertly judged sense of the absurd that enhances the show’s momentum. This is amplified by Lorin Latarro’s adventurous choreography, which draws on several Broadway tropes with the same sense of mischief as Brooks’ indomitable score. Add to this Scott Pask’s clever composite set and Paul Farnsworth’s inventive, colourful costume designs, and the production seems to have found its natural home in the West End.
| 2001 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| 2002 | US Tour |
1st National Tour US Tour |
| 2003 | US Tour |
2nd National Tour US Tour |
| 2003 | Canada |
Toronto Production Canada |
| 2004 | West End |
London Production West End |
| 2006 | Las Vegas |
Las Vegas |
| 2007 | Lincolnshire, IL (Regional) |
Regional Premiere Lincolnshire, IL (Regional) |
| 2024 | West End |
West End |
| 2025 | West End |
West End |
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