Actors performing flawlessly choreographed musical numbers prance around a bedecked set, their dazzling costumes glistening and their enthusiastic energy radiating throughout the theater.

Looking around, one would expect to be in an elegant theater, with lush, gold-lined drapery covering the walls and balconies protruding from above the prized orchestra seating. Instead, the floor is littered with popcorn, candy wrappers and ticket stubs. Audience members are dressed in street clothes, rather than formal attire. Tickets cost less than $10, and student discounts are often available.

This scenario is becoming increasingly common with a recent surge of movies adapted from musicals, including box-office hits like Rent and Chicago and the upcoming The Producers.

2003’s Chicago was a smash hit at the box-office, as well as successful at various award shows, including the Academy Awards, where it won Best Motion Picture. The film brought in over $100 million in less than a month after its release nationwide, according to the Efanguide Web site (efanguide.com).

The film version of Rent was released on Nov. 23. It originally debuted on Broadway in 1996, and has gained a cult following over the years. Devoted fans see the production time and time again.

Based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, Rent covers a year, or 525,600 minutes in the life of a group of struggling artists dealing with issues such as AIDS, drugs, relationships and conniving landlords.

The total nationwide gross of the film by Nov. 27 was already $11,735,000, according to a movie statistics Web site (movieweb.com).

The remake of Mel Brooks’ movie and play The Producers hits theaters today. Starring an eminent cast ― Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell ― the light-hearted film will attract viewers, according to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences film archivist Kelly Chisholm.

Chisholm said that “star power” is the key to successful film musicals. “With Chicago and Moulin Rouge, there was a real fascination with seeing actors that we knew really well do something different,” she said. “We saw them work harder than they had ever worked…(actors) are a little more vulnerable when they are singing and dancing.”

Jonathan Levit, a sitcom script supervisor and stage musical assistant director, attributes the success of musical films such as Chicago to the escape that they provide viewers. “After (Sept. 11), people wanted to escape into a non-real world,” he said.

Musical films have been around since sound came into movies in 1927, according to Chisholm. Older film musicals were a mix of films adapted from stage musicals, and musicals written primarily for film. “In the 1950s, MGM became known for its big, lavish color productions and musicals,” Chisholm said. “Although musicals fell off the radar in the 70s and 80s, they stuck around in other forms, such as Disney musicals.”

Successfully transforming a stage musical into a film presents a number of challenges.

Unlike stage musicals, films require realistic sets offstage. “On the stage, you have everything look like something that it really isn’t,” Levit said. “You’re in a house, you’re in a field, you’re in a gymnasium; it’s all made for the stage.” Film audiences expect to see action set in what looks like reality.

The Rent production crew had to conceal the fact that the majority of Rent was filmed in the Bay Area, according to set painter Virginia Hopkins. “They made it snow on Sixth St. (in San Francisco),” she said, adding that film production designers have to work to make the set “look and feel realistic.”

In addition, film sets have “certain concerns for lighting,” Hopkins said. “Small spaces become unworkable very quickly.” While working on the Rent set, Hopkins and other production crewmembers built a warehouse where the characters in the film live. Some crewmembers had initially suggested a warehouse in Oakland for use, but “the ceilings were too low to accommodate the lighting equipment,” she said.

Another difference in film versions of musicals is how the songs are performed.

“Actors don’t actually sing the songs on the set because there is an ambient sound that gets messed up,” Levit said. Instead, they sing the songs temporarily on tape, and as they are filming they lip synch to them, according to Levit.

Idina Menzel, who played Maureen in both the original Broadway production of Rent and in the recent film version, sang live for the movie, according to the Rent movie blog (www.rentmovieblog.com). This is a rare occurrence, according to Levit. In a film “the actors have to (do each scene) many times…and be able to do things over and over again,” he said. “They have to stay fresh.”

Staying fresh becomes even more of a challenge without a live audience. “In a film, there is only the crew so (the actors) are not getting the energy and the electricity that (they) get with a theatrical experience,” Levit said. “Actors come alive when there is an audience…(In a film) they have to feel like they’re performing for something as opposed to just the camera.”

Hopkins agreed. “There’s a certain energy that exists on stage that is really different as it is translated through a film,” she said.

While audience members may miss out on certain aspects of the musical when they see it on screen as opposed to on the stage, film musicals are much more accessible. For most high school students who cannot afford to see stage musicals on a fairly regular basis, film musicals are a good surrogate, according to Chisholm. “I’m glad they’re back on film because people can see them more readily than stage musicals,” she said.

Ultimately, it is the purchasing power of teen and other cash-strapped audiences that may determine the fate of the current adapted-from-Broadway film musical trend.

If Rent and The Producers are as successful as other recent film musicals, Chisholm believes the trend will continue. “If those two movies do well, people will keep looking to Broadway to make more,” she said.