Young Frankenstein

“It’s alive!” Funny man Mel Brooks adapts his popular film “Young Frankenstein” into a brilliant stage creation. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein inherits his infamous grandfather’s Transylvanian estate, where he recreates his grandfather’s ghoulish experiments with the help of humpbacked Igor, leggy lab assistant Inga, and the fearsome Frau Blücher. Catastrophe unfolds when the monster escapes into the nearby village! Young Frankenstein has all the of panache of the film with a little extra theatrical flair added (and plenty of double entendres!)

The 1978 film, written by Brooks and Gene Wilder, parodied 1930s monster movies to every detail, down to being filmed in black and white, and has been called Mr. Brooks’ “most sustained piece of movie-making.” After the success of his 2001 musical, The Producers, based on Brooks’ 1967 film of the same name, Brooks decided to create another musical based on Young Frankenstein. Brooks and Thomas Meehan (the same team thatcrafted The Producers, including director/choreographer Susan Stroman) began work on the project in 2006. The show opened on Broadway in 2007. The New York Post called it “very good indeed” and that “Brooks and Stroman pulled out every stop… Brooks’ lyrics are bright and witty. Better yet, the book … does a great job, with the assistance of co-writer Thomas Meehan, in transferring the original script to the stage.”

Although the plot remains mostly the same, there are some added surprises Young Frankenstein movie fans will discover when seeing the musical. The opening number, “Happiest Town in Town” is an entirely new addition, not corresponding to any scene from the film, which introduces us to the villagers and their long withstood suffering at the hands of their sinister neighbor, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The lecture hall scene is sung with impressive speed in a number called “The Brain,” where jokes and wordplay fly at 90 mph. Unlike in the film, we get to meet the ghost of Frederick’s famed grandfather as well as the rest of the Frankenstein generations past in “Join the Family Business.” Igor cleverly persuades the villagers in a show-stopping distraction in “Transylvania Mania.” “Putin’ on the Ritz,” sung by the monster and the leads, goes into a rip-roaring, jaw- dropping tap number danced by a chorus line of mini-monsters. Between musical numbers, audiences can count on seeing all their favorite funny moments, including Igor’s ever-changing hump, the moving bookcase scene, and a distant horse whinny at every utterance of Frau Blücher’s name.

The Western Stage’s production is directed by Jon Patrick Selover and choreographed by Susan Cable. Musical direction by Don Dally; scenic design by Theodore Michael Dolas; costume design by Amber Hamzeh; hair and makeup design by Maegan Roux; lighting design by Derek Duarte; and sound design by Jeff Mockus.