I said, “I also fought in World War II. I don’t remember seeing you there.” That kind of took the wind out of his sails. I said, “It’s all in fun, please take it that way.” Believe it or not, he actually calmed down and went back to his seat.
* * *
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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: