Young Frankenstein

[THEATRICAL100]

Posted: 5/18/12 at 8:14pm

Looking up the history of the show...why did the tour take a hiatus? Did no one like it and they had to re-tool? Just wondering.

[Overkill]

Posted: 5/18/12 at 10:19pm

It switched from Equity to a Non-Equity production.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 5/18/12 at 10:43pm

That was not the reason. The tour was not doing as well as prjected, and they decided to take a hiatus in order to redesign the set in order to make it cheaper to load in and load out. It cut the costs sigificantly do to that.

Most of the cast remained intact, though some left as planned due to other engagments.

[Overkill]

Posted: 5/18/12 at 10:51pm

Wait, are we talking about after they closed in LA? I knew they down sized, but I swear I remember reading Roger Bart left, so I guess I assumed it was non-equity since they scaled it back and the star left... Ah well.

[emo_geek]

Posted: 5/18/12 at 11:09pm

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't't the tour end it's LA engagement early due to lack of sales? I'm curious if this was true or not, I can't remember if I read that or made it up.

[roseaddams]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 4:27am

I'm pretty sure they did -- I remember when I first looked up their tour dates that I'd have two weeks free to see it after my summer job ended, and then later noticing that it was closing the same day as my show ended.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 10:30am

I think that I have a way to get the specific details about this, but can't access it until Monday.

[castlestreet]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 10:35am

I saw the "revamped" tour in Rochester and it was awful! The only good thing about it was Corey English as Igor- the cast had no life and the show was nothing like what I remembered seeing on Broadway- all in all a very dull night of theater.

[FANtomFollies]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 2:13pm

i would be terrified to see a worse production than what i saw on bway. It's baffling to me that some people mention 'Spider-Man' as one of the worse bway shows ever, when (imo) YF was 1000x worse.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 3:34pm

I personally think that YF wasn't half as bad as it was cracked up to be. The reviews in NY were god awful and so we went with very low expectations, but perhaps because we expected so little we found the show to be quite fun. Follies it wasn't, nor South Pacific either, but it was entertaining in its own way.

Interestingly, local critics of the national tour gave it much better reviews than the NY critics (not all, but the majority.) Some even loved it, scaled down sets and all.

[dragonlp86]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 10:15pm

I ignored the reviews and was able to see the tour when it made a stop in Houston. This was before they scaled it back big-time, so all of the big set pieces were still there. And I enjoyed the show quite a bit. Was it perfect? Heck no. But it was a fun couple of hours to spend in the theatre.

[emo_geek]

Posted: 5/20/12 at 6:06am

I saw the tour at the Pantages, and the more recent tour going around still. I enjoyed it going in with a different expectation (having seen the original broadway cast) and I enjoyed myself a lot. A.J. Homes as Dr. Frankenstein was quite fun.

[aasjb4ever]

Posted: 5/20/12 at 7:04am

When did the non-equity tour begin?

ETA: Well I saw the tour in March of 2011, so according to wikipedia, that was still the first tour after the hiatus. That was such a polar opposite to what I had seen on Broadway. Where there was a gorgeous, hulking set and a palpable energy, I saw lazily painted drops for sets and a cast that just wasn’t feeling it. Updated On: 5/20/12 at 07:04 AM

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/20/12 at 5:50pm

I saw the tour back in October 2010. The set was extremely scaled back (especially the laboratory), but I LOVED it. It was a such a fun show. I also remember this show having one of the best sounding orchestras I have heard for a live production.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 5/21/12 at 10:52am

As promised, here are the facts regarding the Equity tour. The tour opened in Providence in September of 2009 and ran as originally planned until reaching LA at the end of July, 2010, where the run was shortened from an originally intended run of about six weeks to about two weeks when it went on a six week hiatus until re-opening in Costa Mesa in September in its downsized form that allowed it to move more efficiently (and less expensively) from city to city.

It then ran as planned until at least May of 2011 and perhaps longer, I'm not certain. Though some cast members did leave the show as planned, this tour was always an Equity tour.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/21/12 at 11:45am

If I'm not mistaken, the current Frederick on tour is AJ Holmes, better known as the principal composer and puppeteer for Team Starkid. Just a fun fact!

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 5/21/12 at 2:38pm

AJ Holmes has written the music for a wonderful origin musical, "Gibson Fleck", with Ali Gordon and Carlos Valdes, performed at University of Michigan.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/21/12 at 3:02pm

As the songwriter for "Me and My Dick" (a show in which he also performed a cameo role), he is a high-selling artist on both Itunes and Billboard charts. Not bad for a Non-Equity guy!

[MadAboutTheBoy]

Posted: 5/21/12 at 9:30pm

I've not seen the show, but I've always wondered something based on the footage I've seen. During "Please Don't Touch Me," it appears as though they've set the number on a ship. But in the movie, wasn't this scene set at a train station? Does anyone know the reason for the change from film to stage?

[goldenboy]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 6:49pm

Compared to this years musicals: Ghost, Leap of Faith, Newsies, Lysistrata Jones
and On a Clear Day.....

Young Frankenstein was beyond brilliant. It was better than Adam's Family.

Haven't seen Nice Work or Once but other than that what a crappy crappy year for musicals.