By Mervyn Rothstein
04 Feb 2010

My previous manager asked me what I wanted to achieve in my career that I hadn't. I told him that I had a fantasy of having a nightclub but was mindful of the fact that every entertainer I knew who had a nightclub had not been successful, from Bobby Short to Julie Wilson to Chita Rivera. He suggested approaching the Regency Hotel because I had played private events for the Tisch family, which owns it, and liked them a great deal, and they were very receptive to opening a club. Because of their interest we were able to open Feinstein's. And it's been 10 years now.

Your first Broadway appearance was in 1988, in Michael Feinstein in Concert. You haven't been back since 1990. What made you decide to return?

Broadway is a very special and coveted experience for me, because I get to perform the songs that I love in the context of the place they were created. Audiences are absolutely wonderful because there is a heightened sense of appreciation for what I do and a feeling of connection that is unique, I think, to this part of the world. It's in the air, in the water — the audiences have a greater appreciation for the Gershwins or Cole Porter or the whole genre than people in other places do.

I haven't been back for 20 years because I didn't want to come back and do something that would be obvious or expected. I've had many opportunities through the years to come back and do another concert, and it didn't appeal to me because it would be something that people would expect or know.

There've been offers to do musicals — Pal Joey, Souvenir, 42nd Street — but again they were roles that were largely kind of what you would expect me to do. And for me to do eight shows a week it has to be something that will be completely consuming and fascinating and will keep me fresh and excited every moment I'll be onstage. And I can assure you that that will be the case with Dame Edna. We have some extraordinary surprises planned for Broadway.

Edna has conquered many mediums but has secret ambitions to be on the Broadway musical stage. Our fans have expectations, and those expectations will be fulfilled. But I can tell you that there will be some pretty wild moments in the show. And I hope I survive them.

Is there something in your career that you haven't done that you are still hoping to accomplish?

One ambition is to produce a film, and I'm actually in the midst of producing a Gershwin biopic, as they used to call them, with Marc Platt, who co-produced Wicked on Broadway and the movie version of Nine.

The other is to create a musical. So I've been writing musicals. One is at the behest of MGM Onstage, which approached me about doing a musical stage version of "The Thomas Crown Affair," and I'm very excited about that.

The other is a show called The Gold Room, with a British librettist, Warner Brown, based on the life of Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress. We had a reading of it with Victoria Clark and Jonathan Groff, and it went very well.

*