"I think it’s going to be great for the audience to have something they can laugh with and laugh at for the final show of the season.” So said Scott Schwartz, Bay Street Theater’s artistic director, about “Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein: The Musical,” which will open at the Sag Harbor venue on Aug. 3, with previews starting next Thursday.
It has been 50 years since Mr. Brooks’s comedy horror film was released, to high acclaim from audiences and critics. Vincent Canby of The New York Times, for one, called it “Brooks’s funniest, most cohesive comedy to date.”
The story follows Frederick Frankenstein, a young American doctor, to Transylvania, where he intends to claim the estate of his grandfather, an infamous mad scientist with whom he has assiduously avoided being associated.
Once there, however, he decides to resume his grandfather’s infamous efforts to reanimate the dead. As in the film, the laughs follow Young Frankenstein to Transylvania, where he encounters his sidekick Igor, the daunting Frau Blucher, his fetching assistant Inga, and, eventually the monster.
Directed and choreographed by Gerry McIntyre, the production stars Sean Bell as the monster, Matthew Hydzik as Dr. Frankenstein, James Romney at Igor, Kyla Stone as Inga, Veanne Cox as Frau Blucher, Aaron Choi as the hermit, and Alena Watters as Elizabeth.
“It will get the Bay Street treatment,” said Mr. Schwartz, “which is, taking a show that was done with a lot of bells and whistles and a lot of sets and a lot of crowd scenes and all that, and stripping it down, shrinking it down, focusing in on the core group of actorsand singers. We’ve learned how to take big musicals in a way that highlights the material and brings the material out in a new way. And seeing it with the actors right in front of you is exciting.”
In addition to Mr. McIntyre, who also choreographed “Enter Laughing” at Bay Street, the creative team includes Mike Billings, scenic and lighting designer; Ryan Marsh, lighting programmer; Barbara Erin Delo, costume designer; Joanna Lynne Staub, sound designer; Alex Brock, associate sound designer; Brad Peterson, projection designer, and Eric Svejcar, music director, arranger, and electronic music programmer.
Tickets are $59.99 to $136.99. Performances are 7 p.m. on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 8 on Fridays and Saturdays, with matinees at 2 on Wednesdays and Sundays (except Aug. 4).
