The Pride Of Frankenstein

Some guy may have said there are no second acts in American life, but in a Mel Brooks musical, there's always a second act—right after the intermission. But seriously, folks, Brooks's newest musical, "Young Frankenstein," opens on Broadway this week, adapted from his 1974 movie comedy starring Gene Wilder. The hard act to follow is "The Producers," which won a record 12 Tony awards and ran on Broadway for six years. What makes "Frankenstein" even tougher is that it's Brooks's first project since his wife, Anne Bancroft, died in 2005, a subject he still finds hard to discuss. But he sat down backstage with NEWSWEEK'S Nicki Gostin and Cathleen McGuigan to talk about his newest, and greenest, baby.

Even though you have a cold, you look great.
Well, I was always a good-looking guy. So is this going to be about the show or a Mel Brooks thing?

Both. There's no show without Mel Brooks and there is no Mel Brooks without the show.
OK, I want you to lead with that.

What's it like being back on Broadway for a second time, especially when the first time was such a phenomenon?
This may really be the fifth time. I started on Broadway way back in 1952 with Leonard Sillman's "New Faces," starring Paul Lynde, Carol Lawrence and Eartha Kitt. I wrote one of the sketches. It was a great show—and a hit. Then I worked on another show with Eartha Kitt that wasn't successful, and I did a show called "Nowhere to Go But Up" that was good but didn't run very long, either. The first real smash hit I had on Broadway was "The Producers," and I didn't expect it.

Really?
I was just adapting my little cult movie—I didn't know how much resonance it had.

Not even after Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were cast?
No, I was suspect as a Broadway songwriter. When David Geffen was originally going to produce "The Producers"—though in the end he was too busy—he wanted Jerry Herman to do the score. Jerry did "Mame" and "Hello, Dolly!"—you can't do much better, so I really couldn't blame Geffen. I brokenheartedly met with Jerry saying, "Here's my chance to write a Broadway score and I'm never going to do it." Jerry got on the phone immediately and called Geffen and said, "Mel is a great songwriter, he's got a song in every one of his movies"—and he convinced Geffen to let me write.