By Harry Haun
30 Apr 2004

Thomas Meehan, who won consecutively the last two Tonys for co-authoring the Best Musical Book of the Year (2001's The Producers and 2002's Hairspray), will be getting right on that screenplay for "The Producers," too, now that his collaborator, Mel Brooks, has returned from California. With their other free hand, they'll be doing the second act of Young Frankenstein. "We already have act one done," Meehan beamed blissfully.

Meehan was brought in to Broadwayize Meera Syal's book of Bombay Dreams since New Yorkers are less familiar than Londoners with the show's Bollywood target. Additional, if uncredited, sprucing-up was done to A.R. Rahman's music and Don Black's lyrics by The Full Monty's David Yazbek, who admitted he'll be glad to get back to his own musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which recently got a "very encouraging" workshop from director Jack O'Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell.

Jazz pianist/singer Peter Cincotti, scouting the score for possibilities, warmed to it on first hearing. Intermission verdict: "I really like the music, very different and refreshing."

All three floors of Spirit, a dance club on West 27th, were taken over for the post-premiere party, and Bombay Dreams literally turned into spirits — a potent mix of Bombay Sapphire gin, peach schnapps and cointreau, dubbed for the occasion The Bombay Dreams Martini.

At a booth on the second landing, Annie composer Charles Strouse was singing the praises of Anthony Van Laast, who, with Farah Khan, choreographed Bombay Dreams. "The best choreographer of musicals in the world," said Strouse, who reaped the benefit of that once for a musical in London called Lyle. At the Strouse concert coming up at Merkin Concert Hall on May 10, Welcome to the Theatre, the composer will lift his own voice in song — something called "Music," from You Never Know, a musical he created for Trinity Rep — and there'll be a preview of his next Broadway undertaking, his musical version of Ernest Borgnine's Oscar-winning "Marty." John C. Reilly, who will be doing the title role on Broadway, had to bow out of the concert and is being replaced by his understudy, Alexander Gemignani, who's currently playing John Hinckley in Assassins. Also headlining the concert: Anita Gillette, Penny Fuller, Jerry Dixon, Rachel York, Nora Mae Lyng, Eddie Korbich and Laura Marie Duncan.

Most of the cast in Bombay Dreams, starting with the two stars (Manu Narayan and Anisha Nagarjan), are making their Broadway debuts. The lone veteran among the leads — and the seasoning shows beautifully — is Madhur Jaffrey, who plays with great dignity and grace the grandmother. She starred in 1965's "Shakespeare Wallach," the breakthrough film for Merchant-Irvoy, and won a Best Actress prize for it at the Berlin Film Festival.

The elephant at the press conference was Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer of the two longest-running Broadway shows of all time (the late Cats and the current Phantom of the Opera). He produced the London version of Bombay Dreams but prefers to take a backseat for this production (even though the billing says "Andrew Lloyd Webber's Production of"). "I didn't produce it tonight," he contended. "I'm just here as a guest."

A lord divided, he just flew in for the opening from Los Angeles huddles over the film version of Phantom. "Now," he said, "I've got to go home to do the scoring." The movie will be released in December, and by then the new Lloyd Webber — The Woman in White, starring Michael Crawford and Maria Friedman — will be up and running in London.