Robbins does a wonderful job with his actors. Both the Cusacks Joan and John, Bill Murray, the ubiquitous Philip Baker Hall, Susan Sarandon, and Hank Azaria all do wonderful work. He steals every scene he's in. The leading actor kudos, however, have to go to an actress to whom I'm not familiar - Cherry Jones, who portrays the director of Federal Theater program. It's a character of such intelligence and conviction and the actress fills it with such life that she commands the film every second she is on screen and her presence grounds the complete insanity of the rest of the film to reality.
Technical credits are all superb, especially the art direction.
The look of the film is tremendous. The musical portion teeters from fun into a bit of pretention for the only time in the film. Definitely worth seeing.