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And now it was April 19, 2001, opening night at the St. James Theatre, where 1,706 people (not counting critics) would tell us whether The Producers was a hit or a flop. I think most of you reading this know what happened next. It was an explosion of some of the greatest reviews of my career, and for that matter the greatest reviews of any show ever on Broadway.
The first review anybody ever reads the morning after opening night is The New York Times. Ben Brantley, the theater critic at the Times at the time, who was usually pretty stingy with his praise or accolades, wrote in his review of The Producers:
How do you single out the highlights in a bonfire? Everybody who sees The Producers—and that should be everyone the Saint James Theatre allows—is going to be hard pressed to choose one favorite bit from the sublimely ridiculous spectacle that opened last night…It is, to put it simply, the real thing: a big Broadway book musical that is so ecstatically drunk on its own powers to entertain that it leaves you delirious, too.
He ended by calling the show, “fast, fierce, shameless, vulgar and altogether blissful.” Remember how I told you about Renata Adler’s scathing review of The Producers movie in The New York Times, one which I never forgot?
Brantley wasn’t alone in his praise for the show. Review after review, each better than the last, shouted to the rooftops what a sensational Broadway hit they had seen at the St. James that night. You couldn’t get better reviews if you wrote them yourself. The Producers went on to become a bona fide Broadway phenomenon. Ninety percent of my phone calls were from people begging me for tickets. As they used to say in thirties songs, I was “ridin’ high.”
Less than a month later the nominations for the Tony Awards were announced. It was almost too good to be true. In total The Producers was nominated for, believe it or not, fifteen Tony Awards. I would have been very happy to have gotten half of that number, because as they say, it’s a pleasure just to be nominated. (But that’s not completely true. It’s so much nicer to win one than just be nominated for one.) The 55th Annual Tony Awards were held that year on June 3 at Radio City Music Hall. Radio City can actually seat over six thousand people; it is so big you could almost call it a cinematic cathedral. Two of those seats, in the fifth row on the aisle, were occupied by Mel Brooks and his wife, Anne Bancroft. We were trembling with excitement. When they announced the winners for Best Book of a Musical, Tom Meehan, who was sitting on the aisle right across from me, stood up and together we both joyfully marched up onto the stage to the microphone. I can’t honestly remember what we said, but somebody wrote it down. Here’s a brief version of my acceptance speech:
“So I’m going to have to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life: Act humble. I want to thank the guy to my right, Tom Meehan. I could have done it without him, but it wouldn’t have been half as good. I want to thank Susan Stroman. I love her, she blessed our show with such magical talent. And I would also like to thank her late husband, Mike Ockrent, who was there at the beginning, who put our feet in the right direction, showed us where to go, and we went there. I want to thank my wife for sticking with me through this. I want to thank everybody. I want to thank my kids, Stefanie, Nicholas, Edward, and Max. I also would like to thank my mother and father but they’re dead. So nice working with you!”
I was brought back onstage just a few moments later by the great Lily Tomlin, who presented the Tony Award for Best Original Score—the music and lyrics of the show. Once again, I don’t know what I said, but here’s some of what was recorded:
“I want to thank Stephen Sondheim for not writing a show this year. Thanks, Steve!”
That got a big laugh.
“Sometime around 1966, my wife said you can write the score of your movie The Producers. You can write those songs. Go to your room. So I went to my room. My wife is Anne Bancroft. She’s beautiful. She’s sitting right there. And she said, you come out in one hour with your score. And I came out in one hour and four months later and I had ‘Springtime for Hitler’ under my belt. And from then on, it was a pleasure.”
There were more awards to come and I was drunk with hubris and joy on our momentum, so I ended my second acceptance speech with:
“…I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”
That got another big laugh, but I wasn’t far off the mark.
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There was a veritable deluge of Tony Awards raining down on The Producers that night. Peter Kaczorowski won for Best Lighting Design, Robin Wagner won for Best Scenic Design, William Ivey Long won for Best Costume Design, and Doug Besterman won for Best Orchestrations. Susan Stroman won two Tonys that night—one for Best Choreography and the other for Best Direction. Cady Huffman won Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her knockout performance as our blond bombshell Ulla. Gary Beach won the Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his incredible twin performances as director Roger De Bris and then later as Roger playing a larger-than-life Adolf Hitler. He actually beat out two of his co-stars, Roger Bart as the fabulous Carmen Ghia and Brad Oscar as the hilariously insane Franz Liebkind. That happened again when Nathan Lane won a well-deserved Tony for Best Actor in a Musical, beating out his equally deserving but unfortunately not awarded co-star Matthew Broderick. It’s too bad Matthew couldn’t share the award with him, but the award says Best Actor not Best Actors.
And then at the end of the ceremonies, Glenn Close took the stage and announced that “the 2001 Tony Award for Best New Musical goes to—they’ve broken the record! The Producers.”
And indeed—we had! All in all, The Producers won more Tonys that night than any other musical in the history of Broadway. And we hold that record to this day! Other shows threatened to knock us out of the winner’s circle, most recently Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, which I loved, but secretly hoped didn’t surpass us. It ended up winning a well-deserved eleven Tonys, but with twelve Tony Awards, The Producers still held the crown.
When I got back onstage for the third time to accept that final award of the night, I started by thanking the most important person in our show: “Well, I want to thank Hitler. For being such a funny guy onstage.”
It got a roar of laughter. I went on to thank the American Theatre Wing, which presents the Tonys, everyone who helped me make the original movie, and everyone who helped me make the Broadway show, especially Tom and Stro. Then I couldn’t leave the stage without thanking our dynamic duo:
“Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are just a gift from the gods. I mean, those guys are tops in taps. They’re better than eating pizza and watching Top Hat.”