What to do, what to do? In a movie you don’t have anybody to replace an actor who is hurt waiting in the wings—in a movie, there are no wings. But in the cast of a Broadway musical there is always somebody ready to step in if one of the principals can’t do it. And lucky for us, we had Brad Oscar, who not only filled in, but made the part his own. Let me tell you, Brad was so damn good that when Nathan Lane finally had to leave the show after his long run, the inevitable choice to replace him as Max Bialystock was never-let-you-down, always-keep-the-show-running, the infallible Brad Oscar.
Stro had the best eye on Broadway for casting the ensemble dancers in a show. She called them her “Beautiful Broadway Babes” and she was spot-on. They were absolutely gorgeous. All of our principal roles were really funny, so therefore when Stro hired our chorus （who would also serve as understudies for some of the leads） she made sure they not only were terrific singers and dancers but also could step in and handle the comedy as well.
One of the toughest minor roles to cast was Hold Me Touch Me, one of the old ladies that dallies with Max on his couch. In the movie, we had Estelle Winwood, one of the grand old dames of the theater, who had been in her eighties when she had done the part. But we couldn’t hire a real old lady, because in addition to playing Hold Me Touch Me she’d be in the chorus for the rest of the show singing and dancing her feet off. We needed somebody from our ensemble that with a little hair and makeup could pass as an old lady. After seeing a few pretty good candidates, we were blown away when a woman who appeared to be in her seventies or maybe even in her eighties came in. In a cracked, elderly voice she asked for an audition. We didn’t want to be disrespectful or tell her that we couldn’t use her, so we allowed her in. She was terrific! When we started to tell her that we couldn’t give her the demanding role, she threw away her cane, took off her granny glasses and wig to reveal herself as a young and vibrant Madeleine Doherty. What a great surprise! She got the part.
So we were still missing one major player: our Leo Bloom. And into the spotlight, at I think the suggestion of Nathan Lane, stepped Matthew Broderick. When he appeared on stage, he was actually our leading man, and the character the story was all about. A caterpillar who dreams of one day becoming a butterfly, or in this case, a little accountant who dreams of one day becoming a Broadway producer. Most of America knew Matthew from his breakthrough movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but he had actually scored on Broadway. We all agreed with Nathan that he’d be great for the part because we’d seen him as J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Matthew is really funny. After we made him the offer, and he accepted, I said to him, “I was so afraid you were going to turn us down.”
He said, “Turn you down? There was only one thing you had to do for me to take this part.”
I said, “What was that?”
“You just had to ask me.”
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Matthew’s chemistry with Nathan was magical. They were the beautiful Broadway musical equivalent of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Right from their very first rehearsal together we knew we had the right duo.
Tom and I were happy with the way the rehearsals were going. The show was in pretty good shape. But one day Nathan came to us with a complaint, and he wasn’t wrong. He said that “Springtime for Hitler” was the big second-act climax of the show, but he wasn’t in it. He thought his character needed a final second-act star turn for the audience to remember him as the star of the show. He didn’t want to take second place to “Springtime for Hitler.” He was right. The only thing missing to make the show a perfect musical was an eleven o’clock spot for its star, Nathan Lane. That is the last spot before the ending of the show and the final curtain.
What to do, what to do? Necessity really is the mother of invention, and we came up with a bit of a miracle. Since at that point in the show Max was sitting alone in jail feeling betrayed by his partner who has absconded to Rio with Ulla and the money, I wrote a number that would cover the story and also provide that star turn that Nathan was talking about. It was aptly called “Betrayed.” Alone and abandoned in his cell, Max goes into a five-minute-long raving nervous breakdown of a number that gave Nathan full leeway to go screamingly over the top and stop the show:
MAX BIALYSTOCK:
Just like Cain and Abel, you pulled a sneak attack
I thought that we were brothers, then you stabbed me in the back