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For PTP, ‘The Producers' will be really big show
Friday, July 9, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by EMILY BARNES
Jimmy Payne, center, plays Max Bialystock during a dress rehearsal for the Port Tobacco Players' production of "The Producers." The show starts Friday for a four-week run at the PTP theater in La Plata.
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In March, one day after William Gibson's "The Miracle Worker" opened at Port Tobacco Players Theater, more than 50 local actors 16 and older auditioned for Mel Brooks' "The Producers," which officially opens Friday.
As it happens, Brooke Howells had a lead role in "The Miracle Worker," in which she played Annie Sullivan, a teacher assigned the task of instructing a young Helen Keller on how to communicate. Back then, Howells described it as an important role she simply could not pass up. Pay no mind to her next task for PTP: directing the wildly popular musical and comedy.
"How about some warm-ups?" she calls out during a recent rehearsal. Though her lifelong focus has been on acting, Howells has been dancing since she was 3. It's a good thing, too, because "The Producers" has pushed some of the actors to learn myriad dances and tap steps.
And if the cast has absorbed one collective lesson, it's probably this: "The Producers," for all of its fun and for all of its laughs and for all of its general ridiculousness, is nothing less than a highly demanding, taxing, exhausting show. (Some ensemble actors, for example, must learn up to nine characters.)
Of course, that doesn't mean the experience, even one that pushes an actor to the brink, can't be a blast:
"If we're not having fun, we might as well not be here," Howells says.
Answering her call, a sizeable group of local actors rises from the seats and quickly fills the stage, in turn responding to music director James Watson's directives without complaint.
Smile and make your diaphragm hurt, he says. So that's what the singers do.
Back in the seats, Ronna Johnson makes mental notes. She even asks one young actor to clean his hair a bit on the sides. Her task involves assembling a batch of more 50 wigs; and it makes no difference whether she orders them or makes them or finds them in PTP's stock room.
Around here, you note an overwhelming absence of shyness. "This is going to be the show of the year," Johnson adds. "We got the A-team for this."
Brooks and Thomas Meehan's Broadway production of "The Producers," which opened in 2001 and is based on Brooks' 1968 film, set a new record by winning a dozen Tony Awards. It's the story of two producers, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, who team up for a misguided scheme: overselling interests in a Broadway flop.
For Max, that shouldn't be a problem, as his recent efforts have done just that. That is, until this one: "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden," a serious play that succeeds when bad acting turns it into a satire packed with over-the-top caricatures of flamboyant homosexuality (and Nazis).
Quentin Sayers, who will play Carmen Ghia and has impressed in other local shows, auditioned for the show and, in doing so, convinced his mother, Janice Sagers, to try out, too. She gave him a ride to the theater, after all. Why not? So what if she'd never been onstage in her life.
Now she's among Max's chosen "Little Old Ladies" (whom Howells encouraged to sound as old as is humanly possible), a dynamic cast of four that also includes Heather Bauer (active in the past nine shows here), Joselle Gilpin and Waldorf's Mary Haggenmaker, yet another dame with an interesting background — one that involves being in Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., at the same time as actress Shirley MacLaine, not to mention a 56-year break from the stage. She last was seen on the stage (just a bit more than half a century ago) with The Arlington Players.
"I love the show," the 74-year-old says, "and I thought they might need a genuine old lady." (Actually, the quartet prefers this moniker: "the old broads.")
Interestingly, the cast includes a big contribution from another individual with ties to The Arlington Players — Jimmy Payne, who plays none other than Max. (Blake Racer plays Leo.)
Payne, who lives in Calvert County and is the longtime baseball and football coach at Northern High School, is making his Southern Maryland debut. In 1999 his daughter noticed an ad for a production of the musical "1776." Payne had been a professional singer since 18.
He had written jingles for commercials. He had recorded an album in Nashville, Tenn. The stage, however, was something altogether new.
Then Payne landed the role of John Adams in the show, and the Washington, D.C., native's new life as a thespian had begun.
Days later, the cast receives a visit from Southern Maryland's Patrick Wetzel, an actor who knows the "The Producers" pretty darn well, having had roles in the original Broadway production and the subsequent film. He spills details about the characters, even some dirt. He also gives the cast some of the very line readings Brooks gave his cast. What a pep talk!
"We're feeling really good," Howells says on the phone eight days before tonight — the night. "We kind of had a turnaround last night."
While watching a rehearsal, it can be easy to forget that no one gets a paycheck. It can be easy to forget that many come straight to rehearsal from work, perhaps because what you see feels a lot like work, too.
As the shows near, rehearsals are held almost daily, several hours every night.
A La Plata native, Howells has been involved with PTP for 12 years. She studied theater at Point Park College (now University) in Pittsburgh, and returned home. Now she manages a small business that teaches gymnastics and yoga to children.
For more than a decade, though, she has transferred much of her energy into PTP, watching it move into a bigger theater (it seats 307) and, in her estimation, gradually become more professional.
"People think it's a job," she says. "I wish. Alas, it's not."
One of PTP's best actors, Mike Margelos, joined PTP around the same time as Howells. The two have been friends since high school.
For "The Producers," Margelos plays Roger De Bris, who is considered to be New York's worst director (though De Bris is pretty sure he's the best). Margelos started acting in high school and later studied film at Towson University. Now he's a government contractor with the U.S. Coast Guard.
He's been trying to wake up at 4:30 a.m. so he can commute to the District and get there early enough to work a full day and make it back to La Plata … early enough. Margelos notes that "The Producers" is a bit edgier than most of the plays PTP produces.
Still, the fact that the run for this show is four weeks — as opposed to the more common three — provides proof that PTP, unlike Max, has placed its bet on a local smash.
"It's going to be a giant spectacle," Margelos says. "That's what I'm telling people."
If you go
The Port Tobacco Players production of Mel Brooks' "The Producers" will open July 9 and continue through Aug. 1. Friday and Saturday performances are at 8 p.m.; Sunday shows are at 3 p.m. Tickets are $17, $14 for students and senior citizens. The theater is at 508 E. Charles St., La Plata. Call 301-932-6819. Go to ptplayers.com.
