Mel Brooks plugs new Broadway musical, 'Young Frankenstein' - his new Broadway musical
NEW YORK (AP) - 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 next month and opens in November.
"Let's forget about thinking - thinking's never smart," he talk-sings in a gravel-flecked voice that never would 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, where the show officially opens Nov. 8. Previews begin Oct. 11
Brooks was in California following a summer Seattle tryout of the musical, which is based on his funny 1974 film comedy. You know the plot - 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 (of TV's "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' mega-smash, "The Producers," where he played not only Carmen Ghia but, 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."
So, what did Brooks learn from the Seattle run?
"Well, we learned that we were just a little long and we've addressed that by taking out a chorus or two of dancing," he says "It's terrible. Everything is good. So sometimes you've got to throw away a real pearl. I think the law is, 'Are we telling the story?' If we're not telling the story, if it's kind of an indulgence, a character indulgence or a personality or a star indulgence, then we cut and move on."
Brooks and Meehan have been working on the script for "Young Frankenstein" for three years. The idea for adapting the movie as a stage show came to Brooks in a strange way.
"I was walking down the street in New York one night about 2 a.m. and I heard this song in my head. The song was 'He Vas My Boyfriend.'
"'He's crazy as a coot, but I didn't give a hoot. He vas my boyfriend,"' Brooks sings again. "I heard it. It kind of wrote itself. Then I thought, 'What am I going to do with this song?'
"Because it was in me, I finished this song for Frau Blucher and then other songs kept coming. So I called Stro and Tom and said, 'Let's see the movie and see if it's funny and emotional enough to put on a Broadway stage.' We watched the movie and they said, 'It's perfect.'
And that's when, according to Brooks, Stroman added, "Why don't you write 20 songs?"
He did - 17 of them are still in the show - and a new Mel Brooks Broadway score was born.
