Kind, who will play loud-mouth impresario Max Bialystock in the Mel Brooks musical, is finishing up a two-week run as Foxwell J. Sly in Broadway's Sly Fox, in which he replaced Richard Dreyfuss. Due to gloomy ticket sales, producers pulled the plug on the show one week after a new cast stepped in. It closes Aug. 29 at the Barrymore.

(Dreyfuss will star as Bialystock in the London premiere of The Producers in late 2004.)

Ruck, who will play nebbishy accountant-turned producer Leo Bloom, already had his foot in the show's door: He's been touring the country in one of two national tours of The Producers.

The current Max and Leo at the St. James Theatre are Brad Oscar and Hunter Foster.

Ruck and Kind played aides to the mayor of New York City in the sitcom "Spin City." Ruck memorably played a numbed teen opposite Matthew Broderick (Broadway's first Leo Bloom) in the motion picture "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Kind recently played one of the bigger-than-life brothers in the new John Weidman-Stephen Sondheim musical Bounce in Chicago and Washington, DC. A cast album preserves the work.