# Hey! I'm back!/ The Producers



## achstechdirector (Apr 28, 2010)

Hello everybody!...I am so sorry that I have taken a break, I have really been so busy with my shows...but today an issue came up and when presented with these questions knew exactly where to turn.

We have decided to do a summer stock production of "The Producers":


How many people are required (actor wise) to do this show?
How involved do the sets have to be?
Any information that can help me?

I am directing it and am interested into how small i can get the cast and what kind of budget I need to come up with for the set...so any information that anyone offers will be so much help. Thanks in advance!


Good to be back!


----------



## cprted (Apr 29, 2010)

Order a perusal from MTI and read the script. After all, you're the director right?


----------



## achstechdirector (Apr 29, 2010)

cprted said:


> Order a perusal from MTI and read the script. After all, you're the director right?


The producers have one but aren't letting it go for a while...don't ask...I kinda would like to keep the cast below 25...so I was just wondering


----------



## BrockTucker (Apr 29, 2010)

I just finished TDing/co producing a producetion of "The Producers." (don't ask my company is setup strange)

We had a cast of 35, but you could do with fewer. For example in little old lady land we had 23 ensemble members in lol getups. Filled the stage, very impressive when they got the coreography right, but not _necessary._

As far as set, this was probably the most complicated one I ever built. If you want advice on specific things feel free to ask here or PM me. For our 32' x 30' stage we spent 4k on set, 3k on costuming, 1k on props if that helps give you an idea of budgets. However, as is usually the case, we could have easily spent twice that much or more. And I'm sure we could have spent less but don't tell my board that.

For the office transition, build two offices. We did it with one and used hanging panels to change it to white (powder blue) with doubles of the set dressings and furniture. It really limited us on how much set dressing we could do in the first, crappy, office.

Hope that helps. Anything else ask away, I have to sit though a pickup rehersal tonight so I'll be killing time on CB.

edit: Almost forgot to add, it took us the full 15 minute intermission to change the office over. Don't get caught assuming 15 minutes is an eternity.


----------



## kiwitechgirl (Apr 29, 2010)

I did a production of _The Producers_ with a cast of 22, plus a costumed ASM who appeared a couple of times (pushing another cast member in a scaled down tank!). It made for some frantic costume changes, but it is achievable. However, our space is not huge and we couldn't really have fitted any more people on stage! I may still have a cast breakdown somewhere - but I'm away from home at the moment and won't be able to look for it for another fortnight. 

Set-wise I don't know how helpful I can be as our set wouldn't have worked in any other space but ours - our stage is a very odd shape and we don't fly or have room in the wings for more than one truck, so our sets are very space-specific! (and usually diabolically clever - they unfold, swing around a pivot, slide along tracks....) The thing to bear in mind is that there are a LOT of locations. We simplified as much as possible - we kind of had a generic "New York" look which did for quite a few of the scenes, but a lot of them you do need the specifics for. For the accountants we didn't have desks or anything - Props built us adding machines with neck straps so the boys just stood up for the scene. In terms of the office we had one office which had light grey walls; for the first act we had loads of pictures up on the walls, carefully-sewn together clothes covering the couch and architraves and skirting boards; we took all those off at interval to leave bare walls, and it worked very well with a different (white) set of furniture. We were thinking about getting painted-over pictures and architraves for act 2 but just did not have the time either to build them or to do the change.

It's also a proppy show, and some of them are complex and specific - pigeons that can salute Nazi-style (and that you can get Nazi armbands onto easily without being seen, during the scene), adding machines, walking frames etc etc. We also had a 1/10th replica of a Mk1 Panzer tank for _Springtime_! Costuming is also HUGE, simply because of the sheer number of production numbers - little old ladies, stormtroopers, prisoners, Prisoners of Love, Keep it Gay, King of Broadway, two lots of opening night patrons - plus there are some tricky things like the Follies Girls (the Beer Stein, Pretzel, Sausage and Viking girls plus Ulla as the Iron Eagle) - I don't think I've ever seen our wardrobe department so busy.

To this day, 2 1/2 years later, I still do not know how we got the show open. On preview night we still had bits of set being painted in the foyer (no room anywhere else!) 90 minutes before curtain up; I remember thinking on opening night that this could go either way - it was either going to be amazing or it was going to be horrendous, there was no middle ground! Having said that, the theatre gods must have been smiling on us because it absolutely flew, and we had a brilliant (12-week!) season. We still talk about it and everyone involved says that they'd do it again at the drop of a hat - it's a bonkers, brilliant, mad, wonderful show and I loved it!

The one thing I know I still have is an electronic copy of the script with music inserted into it - let me know if that's any help (your SM may well find it useful!) and we can arrange getting a copy to you. If you have any other questions send me a PM and I'll help however I can.


----------



## achstechdirector (Apr 29, 2010)

Wow BrockTucker that is impressive...

Kiwitechgirl...that script would be amazing...you have really helped me a lot already... This is going to be interesting... 

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH


----------



## kiwitechgirl (Apr 29, 2010)

Let me know closer to the time and we can arrange getting the script to you (it's too big to e-mail) - purely for self-preservation reasons I'd rather wait until you have the rights to perform the show!! I remembered that I have some pics of the show uploaded already, so here are a few to give you an idea of how we dealt with it...

The beginning of _Springtime for Hitler_



The "you're going to jump on me" moment - this was in the tech before we had the architraves on the office walls:


"very very very unhappy":


Franz and his pigeons (there were six girls squashed into the back of the pigeon coop!):


Beautiful girls wearing nothing but pearls:


The end of _Springtime_ (my ASM is the one saluting behind the tank!)


The load-in (I think this was day 3....)


----------



## achstechdirector (Apr 29, 2010)

I don't see the pics..

I will let you know that I have the rights. I just replied to an email from MTI concerning the rights to the show. It is harder to get rights when you aren't an established theatre but a private production company


----------



## kiwitechgirl (Apr 30, 2010)

Odd, the pics appear for me even when I'm not signed in - they're hosted on Photobucket so it should be fine at that end.

I've sent the script to a couple of others in the past - either I can burn it down to a CD and post it to you the old-fashioned way, or I can upload it to Sendspace or something similar so you can download it - what works better for you?! You do still need to do some photocopying - where the bottom of a page co-incided with the bottom of a page of score I didn't insert complete score pages - I may still have a list of the pages that need copying but even if I don't it's fairly self-explanatory!


----------



## achstechdirector (Apr 30, 2010)

Ok, so the pics came up today, I don't know what the issue was...and I figure that the CD will be the only option since the theatre department that I work has filtered internet (because it is a school). I will gladly reimburse you for postage and costs, I should be finding out today if I have rights or not. On that note, the neighboring theatre starts advertising and selling seats and auditioning even before they get the rights to do their show, what if the rights were denied? Do you think that is appropriate? Just curious.


----------



## shiben (May 4, 2010)

achstechdirector said:


> On that note, the neighboring theatre starts advertising and selling seats and auditioning even before they get the rights to do their show, what if the rights were denied? Do you think that is appropriate? Just curious.



Sounds ballsy to me, but for enough money, I cant imagine not being given rights to do a show (as with anything, it is possible, but what will it cost?).


----------



## kiwitechgirl (May 4, 2010)

shiben said:


> Sounds ballsy to me, but for enough money, I cant imagine not being given rights to do a show (as with anything, it is possible, but what will it cost?).



Nah, it doesn't always work that way - we've been refused the rights to a couple of shows because there was another production both geographically and chronologically too close to ours. Depends on the rights-holders though - we had an episode a couple of years back where there were two productions of _Urinetown_ in the city within about 3 weeks of each other.


----------

