The Producers

The real standout in every sense is Michael A. Shepperd, the man of many talents who also serves as artistic director of the company, in the role of Roger De Bris, the schlocky theatre director who makes everything he puts his hands on an ode to kitsch. “Keep it light, keep it bright, keep it gay” is his motto—which gives Celebration the raison d’être for taking this work into its repertoire. De Bris will surely make debris out of this crappy pro-fascist play—although Brooks’s choice of name for this character has another meaning. It’s no plot spoiler at this late date to reveal that he unexpectedly assumes the role of Adolf Hitler on opening night, making a flamboyant gay man with a bris—the Hebrew and Yiddish word for a ritual Jewish circumcision—a blatant contradiction of everything Aryan.

But Shepperd raises the absurdity level of the show even higher as a Black performer, confounding every possible dream on Liebkind’s part to restore the great Führer’s sadly tarnished reputation. Now this is truly blind casting, but of course deliberate and purposeful in Celebration’s conceit, introducing the theme of racism as the cherry on top of anti-Semitism. An absolutely brilliant touch—and when Mr. Shepperd peers out at you bug-eyed and mugs some of his lines like a blackface Al Jolson singing “Mammy,” the hilarity simply goes off the scale.

I can't rave enough about what a terrific production this is in all aspects... - Highly Recommended

The big problem, though, is that Matthews and his actors have little aptitude for the Brooks style of comedy. Instead of full-body, explosive-emotion gags, we get merely a wide-eyed Bloom and a loud Bialystock, both racing through the funny business (although Jones does deliver some effectively bull-charging Bialystock moments).

I quickly discovered that the entire team, under the judicious direction by Michael Matthews, was top-notch. I was in total awe throughout the entire production." - Highly recommended

A secondary couple in the show has no trouble gleefully inhabiting the caricatures they play, one-upping each other with every exchange, and generally chewing every available filing cabinet on Stephen Gifford’s witty set to the delight of the audience. Michael A. Shepperd’s Roger De Bris is a towering, in every sense of the word, achievement. Vain, preposterous, and utterly irresistible, Shepperd offers a master class in timing, takes, and comic brio. His powerful singing is a bonus, and, if the playing space doesn’t allow him to perch on the edge of the stage, he finds the corded mic equivalent for his Garland moment. Don’t miss an early point in the show where he plays a chorus member channeling Joe in Showboat. Andrew Diego’s Carmen Ghia matches Shepperd laugh for laugh and manages the tricky business of doing another performer’s schtick while making it entirely his own.

If you’ve never seen the original movie of "The Producers," you’ll love this production – hell, even if you’ve seen it, you’ll probably love it. It’s only old curmudgeons like me who can’t forget Zero exclaiming, piteously but wrathfully, “I’m wearing a cardboard belt!” who will cavil.

Directed by Michael Matthews (who also directed Cabaret and Brewster Place), it features the same technical excellence as these prior musicals and is unquestionably entertaining. But several of the lead performances are off the mark, and the result is a good production that could have been better.

It's RuPaul meets Mel Brooks in this delicious rendition of a show that's been recreated a gazillion times, but I assure you, never quite like this!
From top to bottom, the entire production was first class, perfectly cast with triple-threaters, going all out in production values as well.

The original book, by Mel Brooks, Direction and Choreography by Susan Stroman, Music by Thomas Meehan and Lyrics by Mel Brooks has been united with the Artistic Direction of Michael A. Shepperd, Produced by Andrew Carlberg and Rebecca Eisenberg, Michael Matthews, Director, Musical Direction by Anthony Zediker and fabulous Choreography by Janet Roston. And What a Team!

This revival is a must-see, once again a testament to the team that keeps turning out jaw-dropping, ingeniously scaled-down Lilliputian versions of huge productions no other intimate theatre company would ever attempt. I am firmly of the opinion that the gamely unflappable Celebration Theatre, especially with the inclusion of the visionary prestidigitation of director Michael Matthews, could take on "War and Peace" and transform it with guaranteed success into a masterful production called "Honey, I Shrunk the Napoleonic Wars."

To say that Michael Matthews directs with high style would be accurate and yet hardly capture the clockwork quality of his staging, as if he were doing a jigsaw puzzle and getting the next piece spot-on every time. Added to this, it has a cinematic fluidity which gives the actors so much room to play around that when they move into that very place Matthews wants them to be, it doesn’t look like direction at all but rather as if was totally natural for the characters to get themselves into such knottily twisted physical arrangements. In short, the embodiment of finely tuned farce...

If there is a better time to be had in any theater in Los Angeles, lead me to it. But I’m betting it’s a much better idea to see The Producers twice.

Never let it be said that a large profile show needs an enormous stage to execute fabulous musical numbers, because the tiny LGBTQQIA-friendly Celebration Theatre at the Lex has surpassed any expectations for re-creating the wonderfully funny 2001 Tony award-winning Broadway hit. On an almost impossibly small stage, 13 cast members bring to life the improbable story of producer Max Bialystock's (Richardson Jones) frenzied quest for a return to glory.

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.

THE PRODUCERS is an uproarious, utterly ridiculous look at the inner workings of Broadway. The play pokes fun at everything and anything with nonsensical accents, caricatures of homosexuals and Nazis, physical humor coupled with clever lines. In a word, nothing is sacred in Brooks’ hilarious comedy. Kudos to everyone involved in the production, including director Michael Matthews, music director Anthony Zediker, live band members (Leigh Anne Gillespie, Chris Payne, and Phil Moore), choreographer Janet Roston, costume designer E. B. Brooks, the entire production team, and – last but not least – a terrific ensemble cast with the energy, joie de vivre, and enthusiasm to keep up the rollicking pace to the last note. Special congratulations to Richardson Jones and Christopher Jewell Valentin, who are onstage almost throughout. The Celebration Theatre’s latest production, THE PRODUCERS, is one of their best.