THE NEW MEL BROOKS MUSICAL YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
TO PLAY FINAL PERFORMANCE ON BROADWAY
SUNDAY, JANUARY 4, 2009
AFTER 30 PREVIEW AND 484 REGULAR PERFORMANCES
AT THE HILTON THEATRE
The award winning The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein will play its final performance on Broadway Sunday, January 4th at the Hilton Theatre (213 W 42nd St) after 30 previews and 484 regular performances. Young Frankenstein currently stars Roger Bart, Shuler Hensley, Beth Leavel, Fred Applegate, Cory English, Michele Ragusa, and Kelly Sullivan. For tickets and information, visit Ticketmaster.com or call (212) 307-4100.
"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," said Young Frankenstein's lead producer, Robert F.X. Sillerman.
Young Frankenstein features a book by three-time Tony Award winner Mel Brooks and three-time Tony Award winner Thomas Meehan and music and lyrics by Brooks. Young Frankenstein is directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. Musical supervision is by Glen Kelly.
Young Frankenstein was named Best Broadway Musical 2008 by the Outer Critics Circle Award and won 5 Broadway.com Audience Awards, including Favorite New Broadway Musical.
Liz Smith of the New York Post says, "Have you ever gone back to see a Broadway show and found it even BETTER than it was on opening night? SURPRISE! Roger Bart and Company have turned Young Frankenstein into a fast-paced LAUGH RIOT! The entire cast is simply TERRIFIC. Here's a show you can definitely take the kids to and still have a helluva good time, too," while Pat Collins of MY 9 News declared Young Frankenstein "a monster hit." Jeffrey Lyons of WNBC TV said "this riotously funny musical will knock you clear across 42nd Street" and Roger Friedman of Fox News called it simply, "utter genius."
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?
Unfolding in the forbidding Castle Frankenstein and the foggy moors of Transylvania Heights, the show's raucous score includes "The Transylvania Mania," "He Vas My Boyfriend" and the unforgettable treatment of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz."
The production team includes three Tony Award winning designers of The Producers: three-time Tony Award winning set designer Robin Wagner, five-time Tony Award winning costume designer William Ivey Long and Tony Award winning lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski. Jonathan Deans is the sound designer. Two other Producers alumni complete the music
department: Tony-award winning orchestrator Doug Besterman and musical director Patrick Brady.
Young Frankenstein celebrated its 1 year anniversary on Broadway November 8, 2008. The production played its pre-Broadway engagement at Seattle's Paramount Theatre August 7th - September 1st, 2007.
