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Brooks Takes Monster To Broadway

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By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, The Associated Press

Published: September 9, 2007

NEW YORK - Mel Brooks is a salesman. Right now, he's warbling over the telephone - direct from Los Angeles - giving a preview of a love song from 'Young Frankenstein,' his new Broadway musical that begins previews Oct. 11 and opens Nov. 8.

'Let's forget about thinking - thinking's never smart,' he talk-sings in a gravel-flecked voice that would never be mistaken for melodious. 'Flush your brain right down the drain. Listen to your heart.'

'I think it's the best song I have ever written,' Brooks says with disarming confidence. 'I'm just crazy about it.'

But then the man is bursting with enthusiasm about the whole show - the cast, crew and, if he were asked, most likely the ushers, too, at the Hilton Theatre.

Brooks was in California following a summer Seattle tryout of the musical, which is based on his funny 1974 film comedy. It's the story of Frederick Frankenstein, who inherits the Transylvania digs of his famous grandfather, the man who created the monster.
Roger Bart appears as the young Frankenstein, and he gets some pretty strong support: Megan Mullally ('Will & Grace') playing Elizabeth (the Madeline Kahn role in the film), Andrea Martin as Frau Blucher, Sutton Foster as Inga, Fred Applegate as Kemp, Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor and Shuler Hensley as the monster.

Bart is a veteran of Brooks' 'The Producers,' in which he played Carmen Ghia and, later in the run, the leading role of Leo Bloom. But then Brooks has a few more 'Producers' alums on board - director-choreographer Susan Stroman and co-book writer Thomas Meehan, among others.

The Seattle tryout wasn't like the old days when frantic writers, frantically rewriting, were holed up in hotel rooms in Philadelphia or Boston.

'We did that in our own apartments - Tom and Stro and I and Glen Kelly, our musical supervisor. We did all the work we would have done out of town by being the audience ourselves.

'I gotta tell you a secret. When Tom and I write the jokes, if we don't hold our bellies and laugh, it doesn't go into the script. We never say, 'That'll be good. Or this will kill 'em. Or that works.' The acid test is: We've got to laugh ourselves.'

GREAT WHITE WAY

Other Broadway openings:

MUSICALS

•'Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' Nov. 9

•'Lone Star Love,' Dec. 3

•'The Little Mermaid,' Dec. 6

NEW PLAYS

•'Mauritius,' Oct. 4

•'Rock 'n' Roll,' Nov. 4

•'The Farnsworth Invention,' Nov. 14

•'The Seafarer,' Nov. 15

•'August: Osage County,' Nov. 20

•'Is He Dead?' Nov. 29

•'The 39 Steps,' Jan. 10

•'November,' Jan. 17

REVIVALS-PLAYS

•'The Ritz,' Oct. 11

•'Pygmalion,' Oct. 18

•'A Bronx Tale,' Oct. 25

•'Cyrano de Bergerac,' Nov. 1

•'Cymbeline,' Dec. 2

•'The Homecoming,' Dec. 9

•'Come Back, Little Sheba,' Jan. 24

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