SETTING THE SCENE

Director Susan Stroman says there were
advantages to filming her movie musical version of Mel Brooks’s
"The Producers" at Steiner Studios before work on the
brand-new Brooklyn facility was even complete.

"It was great out there and the Steiner people were wonderful,"
Stroman told GO Brooklyn in Manhattan recently. "It was
90 percent done and I thought, ’Maybe the toilets aren’t going
to work.’ But, in fact, it all was there and they kept working
as we were shooting.

"But because things weren’t totally done, I was able to
say: ’I need a dance studio over here. I need a warm-up room.’
So, we shaped it, and we shaped it for a musical. So now any
musical movie can move in there and be fine."

The freshman filmmaker and five-time Tony Award-winning director
and choreographer insists the production suffered none of the
time-consuming or expensive snafus one might imagine plaguing
the first major project shot in a new studio.

"Everything worked!" Stroman declared. "To be
able to, in the same day, shoot a scene in Rio and then shoot
a scene in a jail cell was great.

"It was important to do this movie in New York. The movie
is authentically New York, even in its talent. The accountants
are all Broadway folk. The girls are all accomplished Broadway
dancers. Even in crowd scenes, I have a couple of Tony Award
winners."

"We’re a Broadway story!" the 79-year-old Brooks is
quoted saying in production notes for the film. "It would
have been heartbreaking not to shoot this movie in New York.
And here we are in Brooklyn, only 11 and a half blocks from where
I was born and bred. Mostly bred. We were so poor, the neighbors
had to give birth to me." [Brooks, who is grieving over
the death of his wife Anne Bancroft, was not available for interviews.]

Although Steiner is a new, state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot
facility, "The Producers" is not the first movie musical
shot on the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The first was the
1949 film, "On the Town," the opening scenes of which
were lensed on the lot. The filmmakers of "The Producers"
thought their movie, which is set in 1959 New York City, was
the ideal choice to continue the tradition.

"Mark Friedberg, my wonderful production designer, built
a 44th Street out there that went from Broadway to the river
and it had Sardi’s and the Shubert Alley. And the St. James Theater
and Shubert Theater and to walk down those streets, I was like
Gene Kelly," recalled Stroman. "It was a soundstage
like MGM."

Based on the record-breaking, Tony Award-winning musical, which
was itself inspired by Brooks’s Oscar-winning 1968 film of the
same name, "The Producers" is the comic story of how
meek and unhappy accountant Leo Bloom and washed-up, but tenacious
theater producer Max Bialystock conspire to swindle investors
out of $2 million by staging the biggest flop in Broadway history
– a surefire loser that would close quickly and allow the pair
to keep the money left over from the production.

When Bialystock and Bloom discover "Springtime for Hitler
– A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva in Berchesgarten," written
by the insane, Fuhrer-worshipping playwright, Franz Liebkind,
they assume they’ve found their show. By hiring Roger DeBris,
the worst director in New York, and his common-law assistant,
Carmen Ghia, to stage the show, how could they miss?

Stage to screen

Stroman’s film uses many of the original stars of the Broadway
show in the roles they created. Nathan Lane reprises his role
of Bialystock; Matthew Broderick plays Bloom; Gary Beach plays
Roger DeBris; and Roger Bart plays Carmen Ghia. New additions
to the cast include film actress Uma Thurman, as Ulla, the producers’
stunning Swedish secretary/chorus girl, and "Saturday Night
Live" alum Will Ferrell plays the deranged Liebkind.

Stroman believes "The Producers" has endured for so
long, in so many forms because, "It is a buddy movie, but
everybody in this musical comes in and states their wants and
dreams At the end of the musical, it is delivered, and that is
what satisfies the audience.

"Mel Brooks’s characters are working-class people that have
these wants and dreams," the 51-year-old Delaware native
continued. "And I think that has an accessibility that is
appealing. Mel says he writes for the people, and I think people
see themselves in these roles, although these are very eccentric
characters."

Stroman says both she and Brooks felt it was important to make
a film version of the Broadway show, not only to preserve the
extraordinary performances of its stars, but also to make it
available in a format that is accessible for audiences who can’t
afford tickets to the stage show or who don’t have the means
to watch it in the Big Apple.

"[Brooks] absolutely has that sensibility. He wanted someone
in Ohio, who is never going to make it to New York, to see the
performance of Nathan and Matthew and to hear Mel Brooks’s lyrics
and music and thank God he wants to do that," Stroman said.

Brooks still has it

A renowned director, producer, writer and actor in his own right,
Brooks concentrated on writing the show, and later the movie,
and honing his unique brand of comedy, entrusting Stroman, who
also directed and choreographed the stage musical, to handle
most of the other details.

"When we created the musical, I think what was great for
Mel was he didn’t have to worry about anything," Stroman
explained. "He just had to worry about the comedy. And he
wrote and wrote and wrote these wonderful lyrics, and it just
gave him the freedom to be this incredible writer, and that is
why it is so chock full of comedy.

"And when we got to the movie, Mel had his producer hat
on. He was there to say, ’You can have whatever you want, just
don’t spend a penny.’ He would say: ’Stro, stop asking for pie
a la mode. Just ask for the pie.’"

So, how hard was it to switch gears and turn a stage musical
based on a non-musical movie into a movie musical? Not so hard,
Stroman swears. Actually, she says "The Producers"
was the perfect project for her to cut her teeth on, since it
required so many of the same skills she used in directing stage
productions. The fact that many of her actors also had considerable
film experience and knew how to pull back and not play to the
balcony as they do in theater, also helped, she admits.

"If a [theater] audience is really enjoying [a performance],
the actor is going to milk it," said Stroman. "If the
audience is not responsive, they are going to drive that show
and get home. They are in charge of how fast or slow that show
goes.

"But in film, the director is totally in charge. The director
is the only constant all the way through the year, for the entire
film. I think the editing process was my favorite."

Working through tears

Despite the joy and success "The Producers" has brought
to all involved, both Brooks and Stroman suffered personal tragedies
during the course of creating the stage musical and new film.
Stroman’s husband, musical and film director Mike Ockrent, died
of leukemia shortly after she met Brooks, while Brooks’ beloved
wife, Bancroft, died of uterine cancer just as the film was being
edited.

"I know everything he is going through," Stroman confided.
"I speak to him almost every day. He is grieving, and it
is hard for him to be out in crowds. He misses her so. They were
inseparable. We are very close and it is strange that this kind
of thing would happen. The material of ’The Producers’ is like
a life raft. It was when I started with it and now it is for
him."

Although Brooks is avoiding the limelight these days, Stroman
emphasizes he is still working hard on new comic projects.

"We’re talking about making ’Young Frankenstein’ into a
musical," Stroman revealed. "So much so, that Mel has
written, like, 10 new songs. It’s good to have a creative outlet.
When I’ve been going out to Los Angeles for different press trips,
we’ve gotten together and worked on little sections of the musical.
It’s rich. It’s a wonderful story. But I think that’s a good
year-and-a-half away."