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Tony Winner Beth Leavel is New Frau in Town, Joining Young Frankenstein
By Kenneth Jones
15 Jul 2008
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Beth Leavel
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Beth Leavel, who won her Tony Award for her work in the title role of The Drowsy Chaperone, joins the Broadway company of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein July 15,
one week earlier than originally announced.
She takes on the role of Frau Blucher, the mole-marked Germanic girlfriend of the late Dr. Frankenstein. Andrea Martin, who created the part and snagged a 2008 Tony nomination for her Germanic turn, exited the Hilton Theatre July 6. Understudy Linda Mugleston played the role in the interim.
Leavel — who, as Blucher, gets a choice Kander & Ebb-style cabaret number called "He Vas My Boyfriend" — joins a company that includes Roger Bart (Fredrick Frankenstein), Megan Mullally (Elizabeth), Shuler Hensley (The Monster), Fred Applegate (Inspector Kemp/Blind Hermit), Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald (Igor) and Kelly Sullivan (Inga). Michele Ragusa (Adrift in Macao, Paper Mill's Kiss Me, Kate) takes over the role of Elizabeth, the cold girlfriend of the title character, on Aug. 5.
Beth Leavel received Tony and Drama Desk awards for her performance in the title role of The Drowsy Chaperone. Her other Broadway credits include 42nd Street, Crazy for You, Show Boat and The Civil War. Leavel's Off-Broadway credits include Lone Star Love, The Jazz Singer and An Unfinished Song. She has also been seen in regional productions of Annie, A Little Night Music and Mame.
She starred in the Encores! production of No No Nanette earlier this year.
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Young Frankenstein, with book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan and music and lyrics by Brooks, was named Best Broadway Musical 2008 by the Outer Critics Circle Award.
The musical comedy is based on the Oscar-nominated hit 1974 film of the same name. It's "the wickedly inspired re-imagining of the Mary Shelley classic from the comic genius of Mel Brooks," according to producers. "When Frederick Frankenstein, an esteemed New York brain surgeon and professor, inherits a castle and laboratory in Transylvania from his grandfather, deranged genius Victor Von Frankenstein, he faces a dilemma. Does he continue to run from his family's tortured past or does he stay in Transylvania to carry on his grandfather's mad experiments reanimating the dead and, in the process, fall in love with his sexy lab assistant Inga?"
Set in "the forbidding Castle Frankenstein and the foggy moors of Transylvania Heights," the show's score includes "The Transylvania Mania," "He Vas My Boyfriend" and a singular treatment of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz."
For information, visit YoungFrankensteinTheMusical.com or Ticketmaster.com or call (212) 307-4100.
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