NAPERVILLE, Ill.—The audience’s jaw-dropping shrieks of laughter began as the character Max Bialystock stood outside a theater lamenting the fate of his production that was closing after only one night. He didn’t understand why “Funny Boy,” his reinvention of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” received lousy reviews such as “it was the worst show ever” and “everyone dies at the end; they were the lucky ones.”
Chicagoland’s ‘The Producers’ Induces Uproarious Laughter
When a meant-to-be-terrible musical becomes an overnight favorite, no one is more surprised than the two hapless men who simply wanted to make a buck.
(L–R) Max Bialystock (Scott Kelley), Ulla (Amelia Tam), and Leo Bloom (Michael Metcalf), in "The Producers." CM Stage Photography
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Based on Mel Brooks’s 1967 film, which starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, “The Producers” soars as it skewers stereotypes and makes fun of everything and everyone in a riotous revival at the BrightSide Theatre in Naperville, Illinois.
