Leave it to Celebration Theatre to take a musical as mammoth as The Producers and scale it down to fit the LGBTQ company’s 47-seat Hollywood digs without losing an iota of its audience appeal. Indeed, the show still officially billed as “A New Mel Brooks Musical” may be even more exciting at Celebration in 2019 than when it made its 2001 Broadway debut.

To begin with, rather than recreate Susan Stroman’s Broadway direction and choreography with rented National Tour costumes and sets, Celebration’s Los Angeles Intimate Theater Premiere is brand spanking new from the ground up, director Michael Matthews and choreographer Janet Roston working their proven brand of magic with an inspired leading cast and an equally spectacular featured ensemble of seven doing what it took twice their number to do on Broadway.

Simply put, Celebration’s The Producers is the first local revival Broadway buffs can truly get excited about in years.

Richardson Jones stars as flop-master extraordinaire Max Bialystock opposite Christopher Jewell Valentin’s Leo Bloom, the nebbishy accountant who accidentally gives Max the most inspired scheme of his theatrical career—to produce the worst show in Broadway history, one so stinkingly bad that it is sure to close even before the final curtain, after which the duo can escape to Rio with millions in their pockets.

Fans of the Broadway musical (songs by Brooks and book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan) will delight in rediscovering its many show-stopping production numbers choreographed from scratch by the ever brilliant Roston, beginning with the pizzazzy “Opening Night,” which has every single Celebration Theatre cast member save Jones doubling as a dozen bejeweled and begowned New York theatergoers lamenting yet another Bialystock dud..

“Keep It Gay” stars worst-director-in-town Roger DeBris (Michael A. Shepperd), his flamboyant “common-law assistant” Carmen Ghia (Andrew Diego) and their equally flaming design team (Evan Borboa, Stephen Makarian, Michael J. Marchak, and Sarah Mullis) who “keep it gay” times six.

“Along Came Bialy,” the show’s signature old-ladies-with-walkers song-and-dance fest, has been converted into an even more show-stopping old-ladies-with-canes stunner, Roston proving without a doubt that there’s a who lot more a singing-dancing old lady can do with a walking stick than a walker.

“Springtime For Hitler” fills the stage with a chorus line’s worth of Miss Germanys and goose-stepping, swastika-waving Nazis along with a Ziegfeld Follies-ready tenor (Borboa) proclaiming that “It’s springtime for Hitler and Germany. Look out, here comes the master race.”

All of this adds up to a musical that scored a record-breaking 12 Tony wins and could find itself similarly blessed here in L.A. when award season rolls around.

With Celebration treasures Matthews and Roston directing and choreographing with their trademark imagination and flair, lead performers deliver the goods and then some.

Tall, lanky, and utterly magnificent, Jones reinvents a role previously played by a string of magnificent (but not-so-tall, not-so-lanky) Maxes to cheer-worthy perfection, and never more so than in “Betrayed,” which has the one-time self-described “King Of Broadway” synopsizing the entire plot of the first two plus hours of the show in barely 4½ minutes to breathtaking effect.

Valentin’s Leo could not only give How To Succeed’s J. Pierpont Finch a run for his boyishly-charming money, his comedic schtick (“I’m wet! I’m wet! I’m hysterical and I’m wet! I’m in pain! And I’m wet! And I’m still hysterical!”) adds new meaning to the term neurotic nerd.

Mary Ann Welshans has just the right “When You’ve Got It, Flaunt It” voice and curves to play Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson even if no 1950s blonde bombshell would be caught dead with tattoos running up and down her arms.

Casting Shepperd as gayer-than-gay Roger DeBris is another Matthews stroke of genius, and when circumstances determine that the 6’4” Roger (looking like a younger James Earl Jones in short shorts) step in as The Third Reich’s 5’9” Fuhrer, never has there been a Hitler quite like Shepperd’s to heil.

John Colella makes for a wildly wacko lederhosen-clad Franz while a sizzling Diego transforms Carmen Ghia into Norma Desmond on speed.

Last but definitely not least, there’s probably never been an seven-member ensemble (Brittany Bentley, Borboa, Jasmine Ejan, Marchak, Makarian, Angeline Mirenda, and Mulis) given more to do than Celebration’s sensational septet, whether stepping into assorted cameos, singing and dancing up a storm, executing dozens of super-quick costume changes, or in Ejan’s case, playing a fabulously Filipina Hold Me Touch Me.

Stephen Gifford’s incredibly ingenious set (which director Matthews uses every single inch of), E.B. Brooks’ breathtaking bunch of clever-as-can-be costumes and Michael O’Hara’s equally praiseworthy props, Matthew Brian Denman’s showy, snazzy lighting, and Cricket S. Myer’s crystal-clear sound design mix and entertaining effects all merit a standing ovation as does Anthony Zediker’s musical direction and his four-piece live orchestra*.

The Producers is produced by Andrew Carlberg and Rebecca Eisenberg and presented by Celebration Theatre and Amy Miller Gross, Edward King III, Nicholas Caprio, Todd Milliner and Michael C. Kricfalusi. Mark Giberson, Tom DeTrinis, David Tran, and Alan Wethern are associate producers.

Estey DeMerchant is production stage manager. Tuffet Schmelzle is dialect coach.

Casting is by Jami Rudofsky. Laura Graczyk, Valerie Larsen, Parnell Damone Marcano, Bradford Lewis Rolen, and Liz B. Williams are covers.

 Precisely the reimagined, reinvented wonder of a show that Mel Brooks fans have been waiting for, Celebration’s The Producers is guaranteed to be this summer’s biggest small-stage musical smash.

*Leigh Anne Gillespie, Phil Moore, Chris Payne, and Zediker

Celebration Theatre at Lex Theatre, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood.
www.celebrationtheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
June 28, 2019
Photos: Matthew Brian Denman

Tags: Celebration Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mel Brooks