‘The Producers’ brings Broadway misadventures to Beaver Creek

BEAVER CREEK — The national tour of the revolutionary Broadway musical “The Producers” will perform at the Vilar Performing Arts Center today at 7:30 p.m.

Winner of a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards, Mel Brooks’ musical “The Producers” took Broadway by storm when it premiered to critical acclaim in 2001, telling the tale of a pair of lackluster Broadway producers who try to steal the show by producing a flop.

“The Producers” follows the misadventures of Max Bialystock, a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer, and his mild-mannered accountant, Leo Bloom, as realize they could strike it rich by bilking their backers (all “little old ladies”) out of millions of dollars and producing the most notorious flop in theater history. After finding the worst show, worst director and worst actors, Bialystock and Bloom have to deal with the consequences of producing the gloriously offensive “Springtime for Hitler.”

‘Drunk on its powers to entertain’

Brooks’ Broadway masterpiece opened to audience and critical acclaim, receiving top honors at the Tony and Drama Desk awards. As Ben Brantley, of The New York Times, said, “It is, to put it simply, the real thing: a big Broadway book musical that is so ecstatically drunk on its powers to entertain that it leaves you delirious, too.”

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Directed by Nigel West and choreographed by Lauren Kadel, with original direction and choreography by Susan Stroman, the cast of “The Producers” includes David Johnson (Max Bialystock), Richard LaFleur (Leo Bloom), John B. Boss (Roger De Bris), J Ryan Carrol (Carmen Ghia), Jessica Ernest (Ulla) and Thomas Slater (Franz Liebkind). The show features a book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan and lyrics by Brooks.