Character guide
Max Bialystock
from The Producers
Max Bialystock is the desperate, larger than life Broadway producer at the center of Mel Brooks's The Producers, a show built around his outrageous scheme to get rich by staging a flop.
- Show
- The Producers
- Broadway premiere
- 2001
- Role
- Lead
- Music by
- Mel Brooks
Max Bialystock: from the film to Broadway
Broadway compared with the 1967 film and 2005 movie musical
Zero Mostel played Max in Mel Brooks's 1967 film, and Nathan Lane made the role his own: he originated it on Broadway in 2001 and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, repeated it in the 2005 movie musical, and even played it in London in 2004, stepping in when Richard Dreyfuss was let go four days before previews.
The ending shifts for Max. In the 1967 film, Max, Leo, and Franz are found incredibly guilty and go to the state penitentiary together. In the musical, Max faces trial alone after Leo runs off to Rio with Ulla, until Leo returns in the nick of time and the judge sends all three to Sing Sing, where they write Prisoners of Love and win a pardon.
Who is Max Bialystock?
Once a titan of Broadway producing, Max has fallen on hard times by the time the story opens, reduced to romancing wealthy elderly widows for financing. When a timid accountant named Leo Bloom points out that a producer could theoretically make more money from a flop than a hit, Max seizes on the idea and drags Leo into a wild plan to oversell shares in a show designed to fail.
Max is the driving force of the entire plot, a con man with genuine charisma, and his hunger for one last shot at glory gives the musical its comic momentum from the opening number through the final curtain.
Playing Max on stage
This is one of the great lead roles in modern musical comedy, demanding a performer with enormous stamina, sharp comic timing, and a booming stage presence. Max is on stage for most of the show, carrying big group numbers as well as fast, verbal patter, so the role rewards an actor who can be both a shameless huckster and, in quieter moments, oddly sympathetic.
Audiences respond to Max because his ambition is so unapologetically over the top. He is a classic theatrical rogue, and performers who take on the part get to chew through some of Mel Brooks's funniest, brashest material.
Max Bialystock: frequently asked questions
What show is Max Bialystock from?
Max Bialystock is the lead character in The Producers, which opened on Broadway in 2001.
Is Max a lead or supporting role?
Max is a lead role and one of the two central characters, alongside his partner Leo Bloom.
Who wrote the music for The Producers?
Mel Brooks wrote the music and lyrics, adapting his own 1968 film into the stage musical.
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