YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN Opens Its National Tour At PPAC 9/29-10/4

The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein, a new musical comedy from the creative team of the 12-time Tony Award-winning smash The Producers, opened on Broadway November 8th 2007 at the Hilton Theatre and opens its national tour at the Providence Performing Arts Center, September 29 - October 4, 2009.

Tickets for The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein will go on sale on Monday, June 8 at 10A at the PPAC Box Office window, by phone at (401) 421-ARTS and online at www.ppacri.org anytime. Please note that Summer Box Office hours are in effect until September 3, and those hours are Monday - Thursday from 10A - 3P, and 10A - curtain on show days. Regular Box Office hours resume on September 8, 2009.

Ticket prices for The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein are: $78, $73, $68, $63, $58, $53, and $48; all ticket prices include a $3 per ticket restoration fee. Performance times for The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein are as follows: Tuesday, September 29 at 7P; Wednesday, September 30 at 7:30P; Thursday, October 1 at 7:30P; Friday, October 2 at 8P; Saturday, October 3 at 2P and 8P; and Sunday, October 4 at 1P and 6:30P. Discounted rates are available for groups of 20 or more attending the same performance; for more information on group sales, contact Paul Hiatt at (401) 574-3162 or via email at phiatt@ppacri.org.

The New Mel Brooks MusicAl 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. The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein is directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. Musical supervision is by Glen Kelly. The New Mel Brooks MusicAl 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.

Clive Barnes of the New York Post called The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein, "the Broadway musical at its dizziest, glitziest and funniest" while Pat Collins of MY 9 News declared The New Mel Brooks MusicAl 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." The New Mel Brooks MusicAl Young Frankenstein played its pre-Broadway engagement at Seattle's Paramount Theatre August 7th - September 1st, 2007.

Based on the Oscar-nominated smash hit 1974 film, The New Mel Brooks MusicAl 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."

Released in 1974 to unanimous critical acclaim, the film received two Academy Award nominations, including one for Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder's script, also nominated for a Writer's Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Young Frankenstein was also the recipient of the two highest honors accorded films of science fiction: winning The Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and The Nebula Award, given by The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, for Best Dramatic Writing. Since its release, the film has become part of the national consciousness: in 2000, it was selected as #13 on AFI's 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time and in 2003, Young Frankenstein was chosen for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

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.

For further information, visit www.youngfrankensteinthemusical.com.

For more information about PPAC's 2009/2010 season and to "experience the ultimate in Broadway," visit www.ppacri.org.

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