Megamusicals, Memory, and Haunted Audiences: The Producers in Berlin’s Admiralspalast

Abstract

The Producers is a prime example of the so-called megamusical, yet its performance in Berlin’s Admiralspalast triggered a response specific to its local context rather than its global nature. Received in the context of Germany’s relationship to its National-Socialist past, The Producers in Berlin offers insight into the megamusical’s relationship to site and place. This article offers a discussion of the commercial musical as well as recent representations of Germany’s past in other media of popular culture such as cinema and television, in order to contextualize the reception of the performance at the Admiralspalast. The article asks further, whether the reception of The Producers in Germany can best be understood in terms of collective cultural memory (Erll, 2005) which necessarily modifies interpretative strategies (Fish, 1980) of a global community according to a local collective context.