Broadway Across Canada brings its latest touring production to Calgary, from March 27th to April 1st, 2007. The Producers is coming to the Jubilee Auditorium, bringing the multiple Tony award winning show to Calgary for the first time.

The Producers was originally a film in 1968 that was adapted to a play by Mel Brooks in 2001. The Broadway production and subsequent film starred Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom. Bialystock is a Broadway producer who discovers through accountant Bloom that under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit. The IRS isn’t interested in a show that flopped, so a producer could raise a million dollars, put on a $100,000 flop and keep the rest. Max proposes the ultimate scheme: Find the worst play ever written, hire the worst director in town, raise two million dollars, hire the worst actors in New York, open on Broadway and close out with their millions.

They proceed with their scheme, finding a script for "Springtime for Hitler, A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden" written by Franz Liebkind, and seek out flamboyant Roger De Bris, the worst director in New York. Things do not go as planned with hysterical results.

"It actually has gone that way towards being a very gay show. It’s a blast," openly gay cast member Adam Brown told GayCalgary while on a tour stop in Indiana. "The show itself, from the moment that we enter the De Bris household, it gets gayer and gayer as we go."

The touring production has been on the road since September after a month of rehearsals in Kitchener, Ontario. With stops like Fargo, North Dakota and El Paso, and Texas, we asked how audiences are reacting to the show in traditionally conservative areas.

"You’d be surprised, for the most part people are fairly responsive and ok with the gay aspect. We have had a few houses where there have definitely been crickets or the audience has felt uncomfortable. People don’t realize it’s supposed to be funny and that it’s meant to be lighthearted and fun. For the most part audiences have responded to it very well and everybody has a really good time. We haven’t had a negative response yet."

The 21-year-old cute single actor is fresh out of college and enjoying the experience of his first national tour. It can be quite overwhelming to tour the country and live out of a suitcase but he’s embracing the opportunity.

"I consider myself pretty lucky. It is hard living in New York and trying to make ends meet on top of auditioning. I was waiting tables for five months before I booked this tour. It is really easy to settle into a groove in New York and just do your job, and when you have a day off there might be an audition but you want to stay home and watch TV instead. When you keep making yourself go, it gets easier. I am fortunate being a guy and a dancer - it was easier for me.

"I grew up in a nice mid-western family in Ohio. Living in New York was great but now living out of a suitcase in hotels and doing the same show for 130 performances thus far, definitely an eye-opener. By the end of my contract I will have done close to 300 shows. You learn what you need to do to make your money work for you while you are on the road, and grow up very fast. I look at my friends, who are still juniors in college, and I look at what I am doing, sometimes I feel like I am getting more out of this than they are out of school. It’s wonderful."

Brown plays a number of characters, including a houseboy. The first few nights walking on stage barely clothed was quite the experience.

"I come down the stairs with no shirt on, nipple jewels and a belly gem with a big turban on my head. At first it was a little embarrassing and I was a little self-conscious, it made me go to the gym a bit. As time has gone by I am over it and it doesn’t matter anymore."

There isn’t as much time to play tourist on tour but Brown does plan on paying a visit to the Rockies.

"When we were in Philadelphia people went and saw the liberty bell and went shopping, and all that kind of fun stuff. When it’s a show for only a couple of days there isn’t much time to do that, amidst doing laundry and everything else. It depends on how long we are in the city. I have not been to Alberta before but a good friend of mine is in Calgary. Ironically she is doing a tour of Joseph right now and won’t be there. I have heard the mountains are beautiful."

After the lights go up, the applause dies down and the audience departs, the cast is left to pack up and move on to the next city. Brown hopes to gain from The Producers experience, and continue on from there. So who knows, one day you could see him again in a major role and say "I saw that guy when he was shirtless in The Producers!"

"Being on a tour makes you stay on your game and doesn’t leave a lot of time for goofing off. I have fun but I can’t get out of control. From this I really hope it goes up from here. Starting your first gig on a national tour is not a bad start at all. Hopefully I can get on some other tours or work regionally. My main goal is not to be working behind a desk, as long as I don’t have to put on a suit that isn’t a costume, that is my goal."