My Rating – ⭐⭐⭐ and a half/5

Ticket Price: $57 CAD after taxes and fees

A smallish audience tonight enjoyed Sterling Productions’ newest creation: their rendition of the Mel Brooks musical The Producers. The award winning musical itself is a fun and hysterical tale of two Broadway producers who, finding a loophole allowing them to make a fortune with a failed musical, set out to produce the worst musical ever made.

The title characters Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, played in the movie musical by Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, are played in this production by Chad Stanton and Ivan Marsden. Ivan, playing Leo, has a solid voice, great comedic timing, and a huge range of physical quirks and ticks he uses to bring his character to life. Chad, playing Max, is also a good singer. His age, however, plays against him as he seems too young for the role. It also seems he tries to mimic Nathan Lane’s mannerisms for Max – but doesn’t quite master that. Chad’s show stopping number, “Betrayed,” is superb as he nails the recap and emotion of the show.

Rounding out the leading threesome, Jenna Zurburg plays Ulla, Leo (and Max’s) love interest. From her coy flaunting dance to her vocal belt, Jenna plays an adorable and sometimes scene stealing Ulla and is certainly a star of the show.

Besides Ulla’s dancing there is some other great choreography in the show. There are however a couple of numbers – such as “Springtime for Hitler” that could have used an extra couple of rehearsals worth of cleaning.

From a technical standpoint, the animated slide deck for background images is excellent. These slides fill the stage and compliment the action without overwhelming it. Rear projections would improve the experience further as the front projected images cause shadows from the scaffold set. This also results in some of the lower part of the projections being obscured. The scaffold did give some perspective to the stage but having it on wheels to give it mobility would enhance the show.

The biggest downside to the show is the sound balancing. Although the musical quality of the band is fine, it is over-amped and in particular the drum kit is much too loud. The performers are often drowned out by the band and points of dialogue where there should be underscoring instead have over-scoring which completely obscure some funny and important plot points during the show. There are also issues where vocal harmonies were amplified at the same or even greater amounts than melodies and the melodies are lost. Perhaps the drummer could be put in a plexiglass box and not amplified. The whole band could be much much quieter and it might be necessary for music director Scott Peters to get everyone to play softer and for the sound technician to start with no amplification at all for the band and nudge volumes up as required.

Overall, Shanna Marie Jones has directed a great show. The dialogue scenes have great character development and blocking and, as long as the characters can be understood, these moments and scenes bring forward both story and character development and provide a great vehicle for up and coming Regina community theatre actors. Sterling Production’s The Producers is worth seeing if you can afford the premium ticket price. It is missing a bit of polish in some places and as mentioned it has its technical challenges. But it is a good time. 3.5 stars out of 5.