Susan Stroman

By Mel Brooks

Stro--that's what everyone calls Susan Stroman--really understands that theater is about giving the audience a complete show. She knows about lighting, sets, costumes, you name it. Even when she was growing up in Wilmington, Del., whenever she heard music, she would picture hordes of people dancing through her head. Her biggest influences back then were the old black-and-white Fred Astaire movies. Her father was a great pianist, and Shall We Dance? and The Gay Divorcee were treated as works of art in her house. Those are movies that really blow the dust off your soul and wake you to the joy of life. It's that sense of joy that is at the very heart of Stro's work, and you can see it in every movement, from the classical ballet numbers she choreographed in Contact to the finger-snapping swing that filled the stage in Crazy for You.

In fact, Crazy for You is what first brought me to Stro. In 1998 my collaborator Tom Meehan and I were racking our brains trying to come up with the right director for The Producers. Tom suggested Mike Ockrent, Stro's husband, who had directed Crazy for You. I told Tom that was the best show I had seen in years. Stro choreographed it. Tom and I were talking to Mike in earnest about directing our show when, tragically, he was found to have leukemia and died. Susan, naturally, was devastated, but we thought it might actually be good for her to take over the reins. We knew she could direct; after all, she had just finished Contact.

Despite her grief, Stro plunged herself heart and soul into the show. What an imagination she has! I would write a song, and then she would take over. It was her imagination that made the show the monster hit it is. Take the scene where Leo Bloom has just met Max Bialystock and Max asks him to join his world of show business. Leo is scared to death because Max has touched upon his dream, so he flees back to his accounting office. I wrote a simple, touching song for Leo to sing all by himself, I Wanna Be a Producer. Stro took the song and multiplied it by a million pink gels. She created a drab, soul-crushing accounting office where Leo secretly ruminates about his fantasy. The dream sequence was entirely her idea--beautiful chorus girls in golden costumes stepping out of filing cabinets, the water cooler becoming an enormous Dom Perignon champagne bottle. She knows the human heart so well, she knew what Leo would be fantasizing about, and she put it right there on the stage.

Stro is so schooled in the traditions of musical comedy that from the moment she took over, the whole cast immediately fell under her spell. She brought such energy and joy to every rehearsal and really set the tone. She's the opposite of a strict schoolteacher. She loves pratfalls and pranks, and she encourages comic anarchy. What's not to love?

Comedy writer, performer and film director Mel Brooks won three of the record-breaking 12 Tonys awarded to his play The Producers