Only two days after starting previews, Matthew Broderick had to sit out a weekend's worth of performances of The Producers to rest his voice. He missed shows March 22-25, with understudy Jamie Laverdiere taking over as Leo Bloom.

A production spokesperson at Barlow-Hartman told Playbill On-Line (March 26) Broderick was on "vocal rest" but is ready to return to the show Tuesday, March 27. (And Broderick gets a lucky break in that The Producers currently has no Wednesday matinee, sparing the actor a grueling double-header on what would be his second day back.)

In other Producers news, on March 11, Sony Classical recorded The Producers' original cast CD at Edison Recording Studios, with Hugh Fordin producing. The CD is due in stores April 17, according to Sony VP of publicity Carol Della Penna.

Fordin told Playbill On Line among the items on the disk are an overture that was written for the production but, at present, isn't in the show. Songs in the Mel Brooks-Thomas Meehan tuner include "The King of Broadway," "Der Gutten Tag Hop Clop," "Keep it Gay," "That Face," "`Till Him," "Prisoners of Love" and, of course, "Springtime for Hitler."

By pretty much all accounts, The Producers, Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan's stage adaptation of Brooks' classic film comedy, has reached Broadway in as healthy shape as a new musical could wish for. The show's try-out at Chicago's Cadillac Palace, which ended Feb. 25, was sold out before it even started (on Feb. 1). The Broadway mounting, capitalized at $10.5 million, already has an advance sale of more than $12 million, according to a Barlow-Hartman spokesperson.

[Editor's Note: Gene Wilder, who played Leo Bloom in the "Producers" film, was in the audience for the April 1 matinee performance of the musical.]