The plan was faultless...

Morning, eight weeks ago. I was sitting alone in my office, worried sick and feeling lower than a mastodon’s clavicle at the bottom of the La Brea Tar Pits. San Francisco. The first national company of “The Producers” had just opened at the Orpheum for a six-week run, and before you could say “Springtime for Hitler,” it would be opening at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. A heavy fog was rolling in over the Golden Gate Bridge while a chill rain pelted down on Nob Hill for the fifth day in a row. But I didn’t care because I was in my office in Culver City where it was warm and sunny.

No, it wasn’t the weather that had me down in the dumps and climbing the walls; it was something far more serious. As a creator and a producer of “The Producers,” the Broadway musical based on my 1968 movie of the same name, I’d been largely responsible for casting the pair of leading performers who will be starring in the show when it opens here on Thursday.

As some of you may have heard, the two performers are Jason Alexander and Martin Short, both sensationally funny guys. But I’d begun to wonder: Could they sing and dance well enough to carry a musical as big, brassy and song-filled as “The Producers”?

So there I was, sitting in my office suffering all kinds of nagging doubts. Why? Because in less than an hour, I was due at a rehearsal studio on Highland Avenue to watch, for the first time, Jason and Martin performing the roles of Bialystock and Bloom in a top-to-bottom run-through of the show. Under the smilingly cheerful but nonetheless cool-handed guidance of Susan Stroman -- who choreographed and directed the original production, which opened in New York on April 19, 2001 -- Jason and Martin had been rehearsing their roles for some time in New York. But now they were back in L.A. and ready to have me take a look at them portraying Bialystock and Bloom, albeit in an empty rehearsal studio without makeup, lights, sets or costumes, and to the music of a single tinny upright piano.

I’ve known both Jason and Martin for 15 or so years and had spent a good deal of time with each of them in the spring of 2002, when I was twisting their arms and otherwise trying to induce them to do “The Producers” here. But the plain fact is that on that morning eight weeks ago, I hadn’t set eyes on either one for nearly a year. Now, I was supposed to see their run-through.

But I was afraid, as I sat glumly there at my desk, that even before the run-through began, I might have to bite the bullet and replace both of them.

Glick, by George!

Let me explain. The night before, knowing that I’d be seeing Martin the next day, I tuned in for the first time to his Comedy Central series, “Primetime Glick.” And I couldn’t believe my eyes! “Oh, my God!” I cried, “what’s happened to Marty?” Believe it or not, since I’d last seen him he must have gained more than 200 pounds! He’d turned himself from a slim and sparklingly charming matinee idol into an obnoxious 350-pound fat tub of lard!

Leopold Bloom may be a nebbishy accountant, but he also has to be appealing to the women in the audience, as Matthew Broderick was when he originated the role on Broadway. So I’d made up my mind as soon as I’d seen Jiminy Glick -- Martin either had to stop looking like a sumo wrestler in a cheap suit, lose 200 pounds by the first of May, or he was out of the show!

Unhappily, later the same evening on which I’d watched Jiminy Glick, I checked out a couple of reruns of “Seinfeld” and also began to have some very serious doubts about Jason. He’d played the role of George Costanza for no fewer than nine years. What if, I nervously wondered, he’d become so immersed in the character that he was no longer capable of playing any other role?

George Costanza, as we all know, is a something-less-than-lovable Larry David-Jerry Seinfeld creation, a lame-brained, self-deluding, pompous, mealy-mouthed, hypocritical lying wimp. Plenty OK for “Seinfeld,” but it would be a catastrophe for “The Producers” if Jason played Bialystock as though he were some earlier version of Costanza.

Moreover, in one of the “Seinfeld” episodes I watched, a half-hour that truly chilled my blood, George actually killed the girl he was about to marry. I put this down as a black mark on his already shady record even if, as George himself explained, he’d done it inadvertently. But knowing his rotten character, I had grave doubts. And I began to wonder: Could any of George Costanza have seeped “inadvertently” into Jason’s soul and turned him into the kind of monster who’d demand a stretch limo to take him to the theater and an air-conditioned dressing room filled with orchids and champagne?

I said to myself -- as Bialystock says to Bloom -- “Have I gotten in too deep?” I may have to get rid of both of them. Leaving the L.A. production of “The Producers” with no stars and only weeks away from opening. Oh pauvre moi (whatever that means).

Eleven-thirty, and it was time to get into my car and drive to Hollywood to face the dread scene in which I give Jason and Martin their walking papers. There was bound to be yelling, screaming, temper tantrums and the tearing out of hair. And that would be only on my part. From Jason and Martin, there might be bloodshed. My blood!

As I headed east on Santa Monica Boulevard, I fell to thinking about how I got involved in the first place in turning my movie into a musical. But then I got distracted when I got into West Hollywood with all of its colorful denizens and took to wondering, “Is it a guy, is it a girl, is it a guy, is it a girl?” Before I reached Highland Avenue, I also managed to squeeze in a five-minute flashback. How did it all begin ....

Geffen the instigator

Five years ago, in the early spring of 1998, I was sitting in the very office I’d just left when I had a phone call from a very important man in this town who shall remain nameless. David Geffen. David, as you may know, is a slightly very wealthy record-industry legend who, at the time, 1998, had recently teamed up with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg to found Hollywood’s newest movie studio, DreamWorks SKG. (The G is for Geffen; I leave it to you to dope out who the S and the K might be.)

It is a well-known fact that David is one of the wisest and most astute men in all of show business, so when he said over the phone that he wanted me to turn “The Producers” into a Broadway musical that he would personally produce, I instantly told him to take a hike. But David, I soon learned, is not one to take even an impolite “no” for an answer. He began calling me once or twice a day for several weeks with the same offer -- together, we’d do a musical of “The Producers” on Broadway that would be a Tony Award-winning smash hit.

“No, no, no!” I kept telling him. “It’s a terrible idea.” But David became like a pit-bull terrier who had his teeth locked firmly in the cuffs of my pants -- I couldn’t shake him off. To the point, in fact, where I finally gave in and told him I’d give it a try.

So, I called an old friend, Tom Meehan, who was the co-author of two of my movies, “To Be or Not to Be” and “Spaceballs,” as well as, most relevantly, the Tony Award-winning writer of the book of “Annie,” and got him to agree to co-write the musical book of “The Producers” with me. (As Tom himself puts it, it took him “approximately two nanoseconds” to say yes when asked -- he instantly liked the idea almost as much as David did, while I was fairly certain that they were both crazy.)

I soon got Susan Stroman to direct and choreograph the show. Stro, as she is known to one and all, then put me on to a brilliant young musical genius, Glen Kelly, who became my right-hand man and left-hand arranger as I composed the melodies for the 17 songs in the show, and he provided the wonderful chords and harmonies -- not to mention truly great dance arrangements. The four of us, me, Tom, Stro and Glen, worked on the musical for two years and in April 2000 had a fairly complete first draft that we handed over to David Geffen to mount on Broadway.

Uh-oh, one little problem.

David was now so deeply up to his neck in film and music projects at DreamWorks SKG that it had become totally out of the question for him to even dream of spending a year or more in New York as the hands-on producer of a new $10-million musical. So, gracefully, but reluctantly, he stepped aside to let other producers take over.

“All I want for making you do this show,” said David, “is a pair of tickets down front on opening night, so I can stand up with the rest of the audience and cheer you on to success.” And he did.

Now here we were back in La La Land, with 12 Tonys under our belt -- the most ever won by a Broadway show. But would they stand up and cheer -- that mythical “they” that make up the Hollywood cognoscenti. The heavy hitters who run the movie studios. The big directors and stars. What would they say? How would they feel? Might there be a scintilla of jealousy?

There was only one way to find out: Hide in the men’s room of the Grill in Beverly Hills and sit in a locked stall all day to listen to what would come in from under the door.

I did. And my suspicions were right. All I heard from the Hollywood big shots was jealousy, jealousy, jealousy. Actually, that’s not all I heard, but anything else I had to report would be in questionable taste.

The pounds melt away

End of flashback as I arrived at the Hollywood Dance Studios on Highland Avenue and, with a heavy sigh, prepared to break the bad news to Marty and Jason.

You are not going to believe this! Guess what?

When I walked into the rehearsal studio, there was Martin Short looking as slim, debonair and handsome as he’d been last year! “Marty,” I cried, “what the hell is going on? I saw you on that ‘Glick’ show last night, looking like a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and now here you are as fashionably thin as ever.”

Martin flashed what some might have interpreted as a slightly patronizing smile in my direction and calmly explained to me all about fat suits and how they can make very svelte people, including Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shallow Hal,” look like very tubby people. “Oh, you were wearing a fat suit!” I said. “Of course you had on a fat suit. That’s what it was!”

Martin gave me a quizzical look -- was I putting him on or was I just plain stupid? “Phew,” I said to myself, “thank God I’m not going to have to give him the ax after all -- unless of course he stinks as Bloom.”

I next greeted Jason, who was as bright, warm and ebulliently friendly as I’d forgotten I remembered him -- nothing like George Costanza. Forget about showing him the door.

But there was still the run-through. Either they had it or they didn’t.

Now, with “The Producers’ ” musical director, Patrick Brady at the piano, and supported only by a cast of two (Stro’s tireless associate choreographer, Warren Carlyle, and his dance captain, Christina Marie Norrup, playing everyone else in the show), Jason and Martin, for the first time anywhere ever, played the roles of Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom in “The Producers” from the opening curtain to the final bows. And, breathing a happy sigh of relief, I was elated beyond belief to be able to tell them that they were both absolutely sensational. Not only were they -- in my entirely biased and unhumble opinion -- hilariously funny, but each of them turned out to be a hugely talented dancer and a terrific singer. (I may have had a slight case of amnesia in having temporarily forgotten that they’d each won Tony Awards on Broadway as best leading actor in a musical -- Jason in 1989 for his virtuoso performance in “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” and Martin in 1999 for bringing down the house in “Little Me.”)

In any event, when Martin and Jason finished singing and dancing to “Leo & Max,” the closing number, I stood up cheering and applauding. Overwhelmed with joy because I knew, even from a bare-bones performance in a dusty Highland Avenue rehearsal studio, that just as the great Nathan Lane and the brilliant Matthew Broderick had wowed audiences in New York, Jason and Martin were going to set Los Angeles on its ear. Hugs, kisses, congratulations all around, and I left the rehearsal studio walking on air and whistling a happy tune, “Springtime for Hitler.”

The price of success

I was the smiliest guy in town until I stopped at a light at La Brea and suddenly had an awful realization.

House seats! Oh, my God, house seats!

When “The Producers” opened in New York, every performance was quickly sold out for months and scalpers were hawking tickets for as much as $1,500 a pair. Meanwhile, as a result, virtually everyone I’d ever met in my entire life -- relatives, friends, acquaintances, distant acquaintances, passers-by who’d once bumped into me in an airport -- were on the phone to me asking to use my house seats.

House seats, as I guess most people sort of know, are orchestra seats that are reserved at each performance for a small number of those involved with the show, mainly its creators, performers and producers. But unbeknownst to many theatergoers, though very knownst to me, house seats are not free tickets. That is, if my wife, a.k.a. actress Anne Bancroft, and I use a pair of my house seats to see “The Producers,” we pay the going rate, just like everybody else. Nothing’s free. But an enormous number of people who called me for house seats in New York assumed that I’d got them for nothing and was thus some kind of world-class cheapskate, pulling off a shameful scam, when I explained that they had to pay for them.

All in all, dealing with house seats in New York, as I was inundated daily with dozens and dozens of requests, turned out to be an utter nightmare. And now, at the corner of Santa Monica and La Brea, it struck me with full force. If Martin and Jason were as great in “The Producers” as I thought they were -- and they were -- then the house-seat nightmare was about to begin all over again and was probably even going to be far worse, because after 35 years of making movies out here, I know far more people in Los Angeles than in New York. Uh-oh!

So, alone back in my office a little while later, I was once again down in the dumps and feeling mighty blue. My little day had come full circle.

Oh, pauvre moi, pauvre moi. What am I kicking about? Everybody should be so pauvre.

*

‘The Producers’

Where: Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: Opens Thursday. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Call for other dates, times.

Ends: Jan. 4

Price: $25-$95

Contact: (213) 365-3500 or (714) 740-7878