Asked why he didn't direct the show himself, he said, 'She is a Broadway director. 'Instead of the normal Mel Brooks, who is rather vulgar, burlesquey, vaudeville, harsh, cheap, she classed me up,' Brooks said.īrooks admitted that he got in her way once in a while.

Susan Stroman, musical theater's hugely successful Tony Award-winning director and choreographer, directed the show - not Brooks.

Into his tape recorder, he has sung the music and lyrics to some 16 new songs - and, along with collaborator Tom Meehan, he's written the script for the show. But it may come as a surprise to you that it also marked Brooks' debut as a composer.īrooks told Wallace he writes music 'into a tape recorder,' while singing and playing the piano. It won him an Academy Award for best original screenplay. This 1968 movie was Brooks' first feature film - and the first time he had ever written and directed. 'On their way to the cemetery, they all stop off at Max Bialystock 's office for a little shtup, and they give him a check made out to the title of the play, 'Cash,'' Brooks said.īialystock and Bloom search for a sure-fire flop, the most offensive play ever written, and they found it: something called 'Springtime For Hitler.' The money would be raised by seducing 'little old ladies.'

'Two Jews decide to put on a musical play and raise, instead of 100 percent, 25,000 percent,' Brooks explained. When the show debuted on Broadway in 2001, Nathan Lane played the character, Max Bialystock, and Matthew Broderick played Leo Bloom, the creative accountant who realizes that crime could pay if they cheated their investors. You may remember that in the original movie, Zero Mostel played the former Broadway king who hadn't had a hit in a long time.

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