Broadway show gets back its star power

By Karen Matthews
Associated Press

NEW YORK — Hundreds of theater fans lined up Sunday to buy tickets to the limited-run return of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick to "The Producers" on Broadway.

"This is my favorite show," said Jessica Chandler, a violin student at the Juilliard School, who stood near the front of the line. "I've seen it 27 times and I've never seen it with the original cast."

Lane and Broderick, the Mel Brooks musical's original Broadway stars, will return to the show from Dec. 30 through April 4.

Tickets went on sale at noon Sunday at the St. James Theatre, as well as by telephone and on the Internet. Prices range from $30 to $100, though a limited number of tickets for the best seats in the house were available for $480 each.

"It's like Broadway history," said Andrew Wang of Long Island, who joined the line at around 2 a.m. Sunday. "How often do big stars come back to repeat their performances?"

Others in the line appeared to be employees of ticket brokers.

By the time the box office opened at noon, the line snaked up 44th Street, around Broadway and down 43rd, and the sidewalk was littered with discarded coffee cups and newspapers.

"The Producers," which won a record 12 Tony Awards in 2001, was Broadway's hottest ticket during the two stars' yearlong run. Its fortunes sagged after they left, particularly after the firing of Henry Goodman, who replaced Lane in the show. The musical, about a pair of con artists who overfinance a Broadway musical in hopes of producing a flop, now stars Fred Applegate as the conniving Max Bialystock and Don Stephenson as the nebbishy Leo Bloom.

Lane, who won a Tony Award for playing Bialystock, is currently starring in a production of Simon Gray's "Butley," in Boston. It closes there Nov. 30.