THE PRODUCERS
Director, Hamish Donaldson
Musical Director, Robert Cantan
Musical Staging, Angela Cantan
Read Through, Tuesday 10 June, 7.30pm at Haslemere Nursery/Players Studio
Auditions, Sunday 22 June at 2.30pm at Haslemere Hall (please note new time)
We’re hoping to see lots of you at the read-through….do come along to find out more.
Details of all the audition pieces, including a summary, are below plus a link to the audition form but do come along and hear what Hamish and Bob have planned.
AUDITION PIECES
Click here for the Audition Summary
Click here for the Audition form.
Max Bialystock
MAX Music Audition 1
MAX Music 1 We Can Do It
MAX Music Audition 2
MAX Music 2 Along Came Bialy
MAX Dialogue 1
MAX Dialogue 2
Leo Bloom
LEO Music Audition 1
LEO 1 I Wanna Be a Producer
LEO Music Audition 2
LEO Til Him
LEO Dialogue 1
LEO Dialogue 2
Franz Liebkind
FRANZ Music Audition
FRANZ Haben Sie Gehört das Deutsche Band-
FRANZ Dialogue
Roger DeBris
ROGER Music Audition 1
ROGER 1 Keep It Gay
ROGER Music Audition 2
ROGER 2 Springtime for Hitler
ROGER Dialogue
Carmen Ghia
CARMEN Music Audition
CARMEN Keep It Gay
CARMEN Dialogue
Ulla
ULLA Music Audition
ULLA When You Got It, Flaunt It
ULLA Dialogue
Storm Trouper
STORM TROUPER Music Audition
STORM TROUPER Springtime for Hitler
The Producers – Then and Now
Picture this: It is December 1975. A young, newly married couple are relaxing on the sofa in the little cottage they have just bought. The hour is late (probably held up in traffic) and there is a decision to be made. Should they retire to bed or watch something on television. After the briefest of moments, the husband stands up and switches on the television – no remote controls in those days! He decides which station they will watch (yes, you read correctly). Since there are only three channels, this is not a big deal. What appears, in grainy black and white, is the image of a rather fat, middle-aged man jumping up and down on a younger and smaller man who is protesting vehemently. Deciding that this is good family viewing, he sits down again. Within moments, the couple on the sofa are laughing and continue to do so for much of the next hour and a quarter. Having no access to a newspaper, Radio Times or TV Times or any electronic wizardry that we take for granted now, all they can deduce is that they are watching a film. But not just any film. This is a very funny film and, what is more, it contains not one but two absolutely brilliant musical numbers. Their immediate reaction is that the film would make a wonderful musical. The following day, they manage to find out the name of the film. It is called The Producers.
Fast forward (since we now have the previously mentioned electronic wizardry) to December 2005. The not so young couple are in the Dress Circle of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Exactly 30 years on, they are now able to watch the musical version of that black-and-white film. Not only is it as good as they thought it would be, it is even better. The theatre is absolutely packed. Not a seat left unbottomed and, for the next two-and-a-half hours, the couple, along with the rest of the audience, laugh as much as they did all those years before. The original film was written by Mel Brooks and, since 1968 when he made the film, he had been called upon to turn the film into a musical. Finally, in 1999, he relented. The resulting musical, written by Brooks and Thomas Meehan (author of Annie), broke box office records and collected an unprecedented twelve Tony awards. Despite the very real possibility of offending an entire country (Germany), the Jewish faith, the acting profession and the gay community, it dared to make fun of the Second World War and Adolf Hitler though, as Roger DeBris and Carmen Ghia point out in Act Two, he didn’t need their help. If you don’t know the original film and / or the musical and / or the film of the musical, where have you been? But if you really are a Producers virgin, then type “The Producers-Extended Edition” into You Tube and you can watch the entire film of the musical, complete with the scenes that were originally cut out. Come along to the read-through on June 12th at the school because being in the cast can be great fun. Very hard work, but great fun. Where else would you see a bunch of nymphomaniac, little old ladies doing a dance routine with their Zimmer frames. Where else would you find a squadron of pigeons giving a Nazi salute and cooing the German National Anthem. Where else would a producer encourage a Hitler obsessed author to go and kill the actors for ruining his play. Where else will you have characters named Hold Me-Touch Me, Lick Me-Bite Me, Kiss Me-Feel Me or a gorgeous, Swedish blonde called Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yonsen Tallen Hallen Svaden Svanson (and that’s just her first name). The “Where else” opening could go on and on. As Max Bialystock (one of the producers of the title) remarks, “See it. Smell it. Touch it. Kiss it. It’s the mother of them all.”
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