Young Frankenstein Confirmed for Fall Broadway Opening
By Zachary Pincus-Roth
and Robert Simonson
24 Jan 2007
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Director-choreographer Susan Stroman
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks' hotly-anticipated follow-up to The Producers, will arrive on Broadway in the fall, a casting notice confirms.
The new musical will begin rehearsals in June and open out of town this summer prior to its Broadway bow.
As with The Producers, music and lyrics are by Brooks, the book is by Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and Susan Stroman directs and choreographs.
Brooks and Robert Sillerman are listed as producers. Glen Kelly is music supervisor and Patrick Brady is musical director.
The Equity chorus call for singers will be held Feb. 8 and 9, both days at 10 AM, at the Hilton Theatre at 214 West 43rd Street, Third Floor.
A recent workshop of the musical starred Kristin Chenoweth as Elizabeth (the role played by Madeline Kahn in the film), Brian D'Arcy James as Dr. Frankenstein (the Gene Wilder role), Sutton Foster as Inga (the Teri Garr role), Shuler Hensley as the Monster (the Peter Boyle role). Marc Kudisch was the police inspector who suspects Dr. Frankenstein, Roger Bart was the hunchback Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore") and Cloris Leachman recreated her own role as the horse-frightening Frau Blucher.
No casting for the Broadway production has been announced.
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The film, which starred Wilder as a descendant of Dr. Frankenstein who goes to Eastern Europe and takes up his ancestor's hobbies, was one of Brooks' most successful comedies, and, to many film critics, his most consistent and polished work. The movie, a parody of the classic horror films of the 1930s, was made in black and white and featured a famous scene in which the Frankenstein monster is presented to the public in top hat and tails, performing Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz." Just as the stage version of The Producers kept the song "Springtime for Hitler" from the original film, this number will be retained in the legitimate adaptation (the Berlin estate OKed it).
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