Word: hitleritis
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Smart guys; they've seen the show. The Producers is, first of all, one of the best translations of a beloved movie to the stage ever. Most of Brooks' famous lines and bits are here, including the memorable Springtime for Hitler production number, staged by Stroman with goose-stepping pizazz. The new songs--Brooks wrote the music and the lyrics--are a sprightly retro pastiche, ranging from mock Fiddler on the Roof, to mock Astaire and Rogers, to mock Bavarian beer hall. There's a chorus line of old ladies with walkers, a flock of pigeons doing the Nazi salute...
...with melodies and leaves it to others (on The Producers, it was arranger Glen Kelly) to translate them into notes, chords, arrangements. Brooks found that writing new songs for The Producers--like Where Did We Go Right?, playing off Bialystock's line when he discovers that Springtime for Hitler is a hit--came relatively easy. Harder was the task of reshaping the movie into a cohesive Broadway show. For help with that, he turned to an old pal, Thomas Meehan, writer of Annie and a collaborator on several Brooks films, who helped structure the show, suggested spots for music numbers...
...toughest parts for Brooks was cutting some favorite bits from the movie. The character of the hippie actor hired to play Hitler (Dick Shawn in the film) was junked as too dated. (Hitler is now played by the show-within-a-show's gay director.) And the movie's ending, with Bloom and Bialystock in prison, has been altered, so that the pair end up winners. What, you were expecting Kafka...
...addition, "Hitler Youth Quex," a film about a young man who is desperate to join the Hitler Youth group, will be screened...
...March 20, the Core Committee approved Weary Professor of German and Comparative Literature Judith A. Ryan's Foreign Cultures class "Jugend Gegen Hitler" (Youth Against Hitler), and Jeffrey D. Sachs '76, Stone professor of international trade, will offer a Social Analysis course entitled "Wealth and Poverty in the World Economy...