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Young Frankenstein to Close in January 2009
By Andrew Gans
and Kenneth Jones
23 Nov 2008
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Roger Bart in Young Frankenstein.
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| photo by Paul Kolnik | The new Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein will play its final performance at Broadway's Hilton Theatre Jan. 4, 2009.
When it closes, the movie musical, based on the film of the same name, will have played 30 previews and 484 regular performances.
In a statement lead producer Robert F.X. Sillerman said, "Once again it has been a joy to work with such tremendous talents, Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman. Young Frankenstein's magnificent creative team and cast are second to none. As anyone who has seen this stunning production can attest, it is a spectacular and extravagant musical. In these uncertain economic times, my partners and I have decided to end our run on Broadway and focus our efforts on the first national tour, which will launch in September 2009."
Young Frankenstein began previews on Broadway Oct. 11, 2007, and officially opened Nov. 8, 2007. The original cast boasted Tony Award winner Roger Bart as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein with Megan Mullally (as the doctor's love interest, Elizabeth), Tony winner Sutton Foster (as comely assistant Inga, who sings a number called "Roll in the Hay"), Tony winner Shuler Hensley (The Monster), Tony winner Andrea Martin (as castle matron Frau Blucher), Fred Applegate (as Transylvanian policeman Inspector Kemp, and a Hermit) and Christopher Fitzgerald (as hunchback Igor).
Young Frankenstein was named Best Broadway Musical 2008 by the Outer Critics Circle Award.
The current company includes Roger Bart, Shuler Hensley, Beth Leavel, Fred Applegate, Cory English, Michele Ragusa, and Kelly Sullivan.
The musical features a score by Mel Brooks and a book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan. Susan Stroman directed and choreographed. That same team was responsible for Brooks' previous effort, the Tony-winning The Producers, which ran five times as long: 33 previews and regular 2,502 performances.
Based on the Oscar-nominated smash hit 1974 film, Young Frankenstein "is the wickedly inspired re-imagining of the Mary Shelley classic from the comic genius of Mel Brooks. 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 the unforgettable treatment of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz."
For more information visit YoungFrankensteinTheMusical.com.
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