Brooks play breaks Tony awards record

The Producers , Mel Brooks' zany satire of Broadway based on his 1968 film, set a new record on today with 15 nominations for…

The Producers, Mel Brooks' zany satire of Broadway based on his 1968 film, set a new record on today with 15 nominations for the theatre world's top honors, the Tony awards.

The hit show, which has already broken box office records since it opened in April to ecstatic reviews, scored nominations for best musical and for stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, as well as three for Brooks himself.

Also recognized were director Susan Stroman and three of the show's featured, or supporting actors.

It was the icing on the cake for the $10m show about a pair of bumbling Broadway producers who scheme to abscond with a fortune by staging the worst show of all time - a musical about Hitler and the Nazis - only to see it become a colossal hit.

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A distant second with 10 nominations was The Full Monty, another hit musical based on a film which would likely have led the pack had it not been for the phenomenal success of The Producers.

It was nominated for best musical, best book and score, best direction for Jack O'Brien and best actor for newcomer Patrick Wilson, who plays an unemployed steelworker who hatches a scheme to put on a male strip show in Buffalo.

Other best musical nominees were A Class Act, the story of the creation of the hit musical A Chorus Line, and Jane Eyre, each of which received five nominations including best score and best book.

The drama side was led by August Wilson's latest chapter documenting the black experience in America, King Hedley II, and David Auburn's Proof, about a young woman mathematician struggling with her fears of inherited mental instability, with six nominations each including best play.

Other best play nominees were Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, about the gay British scholar and poet A.E. Housman, and Charles Busch's The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which won nominations for star Linda Lavin as well as Michele Lee.

Best revival of a musical nominees were Bells Are Ringing, which also won a nod for star Faith Prince, Follies, 42nd Street which was third in overall nominations with nine, and The Rocky Horror Show. Best play revival nominees were Betrayal, Gore Vidal's The Best Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won a nomination for Gary Sinise, and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.

The nominations were announced at a morning news conference by country music superstar Reba McEntire. They will be presented at Radio City Musical Hall in June.