I remember seeing the great Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder combo in The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974) but I never clocked that The Producers was made into a musical in 2001.
It is unusual for a successful musical to have words and music created by the same person. Frank Loesser did it (Guys and Dolls) and Mel Brooks pulled off the same trick with The Producers. I saw a revival at the Menier yesterday. The run is sold out but it will transfer to the West End. As you know, the set up is two Broadway producers trying to swindle their backers by producing a flop. It brought back memories of a show I saw at the Menier in 2010. Broadway legend, Hal Prince, had just a few flops among the glittering array of successes starting with The Pyjama Game in 1955. To digress, there was a brilliant pocket production of The PJ Game at the Union Theatre a few years ago. You don’t need the London Palladium to put on a good musical.
Anyway it’s 2010, Hal Prince is eighty-two and he gets some of his old friends together to put on a new musical. It reminds me of Churchill’s 1951 government when all the old crowd were recalled to service with mixed success. Field Marshal Alexander, happily ensconced in Government House, Ottawa, was brought back as Minister of Defence. It was a political role to which he was unsuited and did not relish. Prince’s plan was to open his show in a small London theatre before a triumphant transfer to Broadway. It was not to be.
“Prince co-directed, with Susan Stroman, the 2010 musical Paradise Found. The musical features the music of Johann Strauss II as adapted by Jonathan Tunick with lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh. The book was written by Richard Nelson, based on Joseph Roth’s novel The Tale of the 1002nd Night. The musical premiered at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London on May 19, 2010 and closed on June 26, and starred Mandy Patinkin.” (Wikipedia)
I saw it and it was not a success. It only ran for so long because on the strength of Hal Prince’s reputation people bought tickets before it opened. But the Menier has a reputation for putting on good stuff and it has struck gold again with The Producers.