Photo credit : Paul Kolnik

Tony Award winners Sutton Foster and Shuler Hensley talk about the process of bringing Young Frankenstein to life as a musical. Sheryl Flatow Playbill 2 August 2007 Read the full article

"As much as I hate to admit it, the cast is very low maintenance," says Hensley. "It's such a joy; there isn't an ego among them. It's been really fun. I think it's because we're all in awe of the fact that we're going to put Young Frankenstein on the stage."

Foster and Hensley are both huge fans of the movie, but they've consciously avoided watching it since rehearsals began. "I saw the film in my teens, but purposely have not watched it again because it's its own entity," says Hensley, who previously played a non-Brooks version of the Frankenstein Monster in the movie Van Helsing. "And Peter Boyle, God bless him - I don't want to try to recreate what he did. Pretty much everything that was in the movie is in the show, and I have visions in my head of certain scenes. But you get a different perspective when you read a script, as opposed to watching a movie. In a weird way, I look at the Monster as the straight man in this show. He's got to have a heart. He's not out for laughs, at least not on purpose. Everything about the character is exaggerated. I'll have on platform shoes, and I'm going to be almost four feet wide. So I can afford to play against that, and then it becomes something real. The scenes I'm in are high comedy, but Mel said the other day, 'You've got to have reality within the scenes. Otherwise shtick is just shtick.' No matter how fantastical the situations are, you have to make them real. That's where the humor comes in. And we're finding that sometimes the smaller we play these things, the funnier they are."

Hensley, of course, is involved in probably the most famous scene in the film: a duet with Dr. Frankenstein of Irving Berlin's Puttin' on the Ritz. "The number is unbelievable," he says. "It's probably seven or eight minutes, and it's a throwback to the old musicals. It's a big spectacle and pulls out all the stops. What's so great about Stro is that she tells stories through dance. And Puttin' on the Ritz tells a complete story. This kind of tap is a new ball of wax for me, but I've always been able to bluff my way through dance. My mom was a ballet director, so I did ballet as a kid. Mom always wanted me to do more dancing, so I know she's up there somewhere and just tickled. She was a true Southern lady, so she would probably say something like, 'Well, I don't really like that he's a monster, but he does get to dance.' Stro knew mom from Oklahoma! and we always kidded each other about how she had to find something where I could dance. So there is a sweet giggle every time we do Puttin' on the Ritz. Another of Stroman's gifts is that she gives you all these wonderful things to do, and bases them around your ability. She's given me a high bar to reach, but I think it's really going to pay off."

Hensley adds, "This is a journey we're all taking together, even Mel. I mean, Mel is in there every day, and he'll rewrite things on the spot. You have this iconic image of Mel Brooks as bigger than life and playing the room. And the bottom line is he's really a sweet, quick-witted Santa Claus. At the first meeting he embraced everybody, even if he'd never met you before. It immediately created a family feel to the production. That was so striking to me. And his mind is so quick. I've always thought of myself as funny, but being funny doesn't mean you're going to be a good comedian. Mel has it down to a science."

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