When tickets go on sale Sunday for “The Producers” – starring the original cast – many of those snapping up front-row seats will be homeless.
About a dozen shivering “fans” who spent Thursday night sleeping outside the St. James Theatre said they would stay until the box-office opens to snatch ducats for Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick’s re-creation of their roles in the Mel Brooks musical.
Although none would confirm they had been hired by ticket scalpers to stand in line, several of them admitted they knew nothing about the show and that they had been driven up from Pennsylvania to stand in line.
“We’re homeless,” shouted one woman who brought blankets and several bags of potato chips. She would not give her name.
Broadway’s biggest blockbusters often attract hordes of “diggers” who snap up tickets for scalper “cartels,” who then resell them at a vast markup. Scalpers were getting as much as $1,000 a ticket when Broderick and Lane first starred in the show.
Phone calls from desperate Broadway fans looking for tickets began flooding the show’s publicists, Barlow-Hartman, as soon as the news went out that the original stars were returning, as first reported by The Post’s Michael Riedel.
Lane and Broderick are returning for a 14-week run from Dec. 30 to April 4.