It's official. The Broadway run of The Producers will close on April 22 after a run of 33 previews and 2,502 regular performances. That's a lot, of course…more than South Pacific, Oklahoma!, Man of La Mancha or Annie. Still, I think a lot of people in the theatrical community are surprised it wasn't more.
The original Hello, Dolly! ran a little longer — 2,844 performances — by continually bringing in new stars. After Carol Channing left, producer David Merrick hired some pretty big names to fill the role of Dolly Levi: Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Dorothy Lamour, Ethel Merman, etc. Ethel Merman was a huge star then, at least on Broadway. At one point, he had the whole thing restaged with a black cast toplined by Pearl Bailey and that added another year or two to its New York run.
By contrast, after Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left The Producers, the only big names brought in to replace them were…Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. They came back for a reported $100,000 each per week for a return engagement. You'd think that if it was cost-efficient to pay them that, the show could have afforded some other huge stars…but that never happened. There were rumors of John Goodman and others being wooed. Jason Alexander and Martin Short starred in a West Coast production and everyone assumed one or both would go to New York. Never happened. Tony Danza is currently in the version at the St. James Theater in Manhattan and he's as close to a "big name" as was ever engaged.
I guess I'm curious why more wasn't done to sell tickets and keep the show running. Was it just that there weren't any stars available they thought would make a difference? Did they think the show was destined to run out at a certain point regardless of who was on the stage? Or are they just so in need of an empty theater — in which to open the forthcoming Young Frankenstein musical — that they decided to let The Producers expire prematurely? Just wondering.
And wouldn't it be neat if without advance fanfare, just to surprise and delight those who buy tix to the last performance, Nathan and Matthew suddenly reappeared in the roles? It won't happen but wouldn't that be neat?