Dr. Frankenstein will soon grace the stage of the Farmington Civic Center as Four Corners Musical Theatre Company presents Mel Brooks’ iconic musical Young Frankenstein.
Based on the 1974 comedy film of the same name, Young Frankenstein, the musical, opened on Broadway on Aug. 7, 2007, and its run time was 3½ hours.
When Four Corners Musical Theatre decided to stage the show this Halloween, Director Randy West decided to do the London version, which runs about 2 hours and 15 minutes.
“I know both shows, and you don’t miss anything,” West said. “We’re doing a really tight version of this.”
Both shows are written by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and this version is done in homage to the original film, keeping all of the classic Mel Brooks comedy sequences and setting them to music. It also has a PG-13 rating.
The story follows the journey of Frederick Frankenstein, the grandson of the notorious Victor Frankenstein, who reluctantly inherits his family’s estate in Transylvania. Despite his reluctance to follow in his ancestor's footsteps, Frederick finds himself immersed in madcap adventures.
With the help of his eccentric sidekick Igor and enthusiastic lab assistant Inga, Frederick brings to life the monster.
It is a tradition for so many to watch the movie starring Gene Wilder every Halloween. With the play, “one famous line now gets a whole song,” West said.
He added the show “is orchestrated within an inch of its life,” and includes all of the “really classic things,” about comedy from Brooks.
Some of those showstopping musical numbers include, “The Transylvania Mania,” “He Vas My Boyfriend” and “Puttin' on the Ritz.”
This will be the fourth Halloween-themed musical for the professional theater company, and West said everyone “walked into it with a familiarity, everyone else has.”
The show also brings back many of the familiar faces that have graced the Civic Center stage, since the beginning of Four Corners Musical Theatre.
“It’s really good for us as a company, where we invest on building the artistic core of the company,” West said.
In addition to the cast, the set is a marvel, and it was designed by a theater student from Montezuma-Cortez High School, who has been watching several of the professional shows.
Cruz Hernandez asked West if he could design the set and West said the student did an amazing job.
“He did drawings, scaled models and construction drawings,” West said, adding the company crew followed those to build the set.
The production will run at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 17-18 and 24-26 and at 2 p.m. Oct. 19 and 27 in the Farmington Civic Center Theatre. Tickets are $16 to $28 and can be purchased at the Civic Center Box Office, at 200 West Arrington Street, or online at FarmingtonShows.com.
