The Racine Theater Guild’s production of “The Producers” ended on Sunday with yet another sold-out audience on its feet, cheering- a most gratifying conclusion to an incredible run.
I have said more than once that this production is the greatest thing that the RTG has done since I’ve been on the scene. I need to be clear about what prompts me to lavish such praise on this show. It’s not that this is my favorite musical. . . I am much more fond of The Music Man, Guys and Dolls, and Gypsy as shows. Nor was this the best time I’ve had doing a musical. . . I had more gratifying pleasure on a more personal level with smaller shows like Side by Side by Sondheim, Honky Tonk Angels, and Grand Night for Singing, among others, where it’s a smaller cast and you have the opportunity to connect with each and every singer. And there have been other shows like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as well as two different Patsy Cline shows (for which I was nothing more than an impressed audience member) that were even more spectacular successes in terms of ticket sales.
But I’m pretty sure that none of the aforementioned shows presented so many and such varied challenges to the RTG as “The Producers” did. First of all, it’s a really big show in terms of the size of the cast, complexity of the script and score, number and scope of dance numbers, and the intricacies of the technical challenges. My wife was a member of the crew – one of the largest crews of any RTG production ever – and they were kept incredibly busy with complicated scene changes, costume changes, etc. And ask any member of the cast and they will tell you that this was an exhausting show for everyone concerned- not just the leads but every member of the ensemble as well. (Some of the ensemble members had nine costume changes, and some of those were split-second changes.) On top of that, we managed to cast this show from strength to strength, with formidable talent from top to bottom. What was especially great was having members of the chorus who have sung leading roles with us- and will do so again- but who just wanted to be part of this amazing show, and in doing so made it all the more amazing with their singing, dancing, and comedic flair.
The photo up above is dark and murky, but it still gives an indication of just what it takes from behind-the-scenes personnel to make a show like “The Producers” really work. If you could make them out, you would see six people seated at a long table at the back of the auditorium, poised over scripts, computer screens, and checklists. I took this picture during one of the first tech rehearsals, when sound, lighting, and set changes were first being coordinated. If I ever get to feeling like nobody has a tougher job than I do in these musicals, all I have to do is linger around that tech table and eavesdrop as they contend with one complicated detail after another. The RTG prides itself on caring about the details – and there were millions of them in this show – and I’m still shaking my head in wonder at how skillfully all those matters were handled. (Not only skillfully, but also cheerfully. One of the things I especially appreciate about Doug Instenes is that it takes a lot to make him crabby and even in these nerve-wracking tech rehearsals, where things are bound to go wrong, he keeps his cool- as do the wonderful volunteers who are seated beside him, working out the bugs and smoothing out the bumps. And of course behind these folks are the lighting people up in the ceiling, crew people backstage, costume and prop people, scurrying around like it’s NASA on launch day. (And in a sense, that’s exactly what it is.)
So while it’s tempting to rhapsodize about Dan and Joe and Len and Bob and Sam and Samantha and everyone else in our wonderful cast, I also feel like their spectacular work was self-evident (by its very nature) and rightly rewarded by one standing ovation after another. But this production really helped me appreciate in a whole new way what a essential role is played by all of those people scurrying around in the dark, not once in the spotlight (unless something goes wrong.) They are the largely unsung heroes and and heroines and stars of a production like this.