Thursday, October 17, 2013


It's A Scream!  Young Frankenstein at HSU!

It’s alive! And it dances! Get ready for Halloween with the scary, sexy and very silly HSU production of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein: The Musical in Gist Hall Theatre Thursdays-Saturdays Oct. 17-19 and Oct. 24-26 at 7:30 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. (Oct. 19 & 20, 26 & 27.)

 Tickets are $15/$10 students and seniors, from HSU Ticket Office (707-826-3928.) Parental advisory for sexual humor and situations. A co-production of HSU Theatre, Film & Dance and HSU Music departments. Stage director: Rae Robison. Music director: Elisabeth Harrington.

Anna Duchi, Erik Standifird and Ashley Adams

It’s a man, his monster and the women who loved them—what could go wrong?

Based on the classic film comedy Young Frankenstein (but with more singing and dancing), it has all the movie characters: Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (“that’s Fronk-un-steen”) who is the original monster-maker's American grandson (played by Erik Standifird), his strange servant  Igor (Christopher Moreno), his teasing intended Elizabeth (Anna Duchi), lovely lab assistant Inga (Ashley Adams), the mysterious Frau Blucher (Sasha Shay), and the mechanically enhanced Inspector Kemp (Keith Brown.)  A chorus of Transylvania townspeople and other singers and dancers complete the ensemble.

  And of course there's the Monster, whose appearance and identity will be revealed only to the audience.  (Hint: it's a well-known local actor.)  WARNING: Contains visual and verbal juvenile adult humor.  It is by Mel Brooks, after all.

Because it's in Gist Hall Theatre, two Saturday matinees have been added to the usual schedule, to avoid the horror of not getting a seat.  There's more on the play and the movie at HSU Stage & Screen.  

Young Frankenstein Music by...Mel Brooks?

Mel Brooks, who directed and co-wrote the 1974 Young Frankenstein film, also co-wrote the book for this 2007 musical version, as well as the lyrics to the songs. No surprise there. But he also wrote the music.

 Even though Mel Brooks became famous as a comedian, comedy writer, film director and actor, he started his show business career as a musician. Taught to play drums by jazz drummer and band leader Buddy Rich, he began playing for money at the age of 14.

 After high school, some college and a stint in the Army in World War II, he played piano and drums for his first professional jobs in nightclubs and resorts in the Catskills. Then one night the regular comedian was too sick to perform, and Mel Brooks’ comedy career was born.

After years as a Catskills stand-up comic he became a writer for the classic Sid Caesar television shows, then paired with Carl Reiner in the famous 2000 Year Old Man routines, and began writing television situation comedies, like the spy spoof Get Smart. He also wrote the book for a Broadway musical.

 The first feature film he wrote and directed was The Producers, about Broadway producers scheming to make money on a musical guaranteed to fail. The movie was only a modest financial success in 1968. Brooks didn’t have a real hit until Blazing Saddles in 1974. He co-wrote the music for that film with John Morris, including a lavish Busby Berkeley-style musical number.


 Throughout his career Brooks wrote songs for many of his movies and television shows (including “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers.) One notable exception was Young Frankenstein—with music by John Morris, and the only real song by Irving Berlin—“Puttin’ on the Ritz.”  (And yes--it's in the musical, too.)

 Then in 2001 the musical version of The Producers arrived on Broadway, with music composed by Mel Brooks. Brooks had reputedly approached composer Jerry Herman to write the music, but Herman told him to do it himself because he was a good songwriter. As composer, Brooks won one of the record-breaking 12 Tony awards given to The Producers.  His next project became the musical version of Young Frankenstein.

In explaining his musical approach to this stage play, Brooks recalled the first Broadway musical he saw. He was 9 years old when an uncle got free tickets to Cole Porter’s Anything Goes in 1934, starring Ethel Merman.

 Cole Porter and the team of Rodgers and Hart, he explained to an interviewer, wrote musical comedy. But when Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein, they wrote what he called “musical drama.” “ Carousel, Oklahoma, South Pacific, and so on—they were musical drama, not musical comedy.”

 Brooks said his approach was to return to the musical comedy era for The Producers musical, which was a huge hit on Broadway and beyond. “There was obviously a hunger for old-fashioned musical comedy. I went back to Anything Goes.” He said he took the same approach with Young Frankenstein. (Coincidentally, Eric Standifird, who plays Frankenstein in the HSU production, had his first lead role in last year’s North Coast Repertory Theatre production of Anything Goes.)

 Brooks approach in The Producers also included quoting and parodying the styles and even actual songs of earlier Broadway musicals. This tendency continues in the music for Young Frankenstein.

Young Frankenstein's Musical Challenge

Young Frankenstein will be accompanied by a live band conducted by HSU Music professor Paul Cummings. He notes that the challenges are a little different than in recent musicals at HSU.

 “This musical has apparently not been done very much since its Broadway run, so we don’t have a lot to go on,” Cummings said, after the first band rehearsal. “There is the Broadway cast recording, but it’s with a full orchestra, and we’re doing a band version.”

 The band that will play in Gist Hall Theatre consists of piano, drums, a violin and bass, and wind instruments for a total of 10. “One challenge will be to not overpower the singers, since wind instruments are so much louder than strings.”

 Cummings describes the music as “upbeat and lively, with some lyrical passages. There’s some 1920s, 1930s style, a little ragtime and early jazz feel.”

 Mel Brooks’ music for The Producers included parodies and sly references of songs and arrangements from well-known musicals, and Cummings agrees there’s some of that in Young Frankenstein. “It’s got a lot of familiar musical mannerisms, which seem intentional. It’s definitely a retro style.”

Saturday, October 05, 2013

Dig This Joint Concert with Symphonic Band and Jazz Orchestra

HSU Symphonic Band and Jazz Orchestra perform a joint concert on Saturday October 5 in Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU. 

 The Symphonic Band, directed by Paul Cummings, plays the stirring third movement of Culloden, among other selections. This is contemporary American composer Julie Giroux’s evocation of ancient Scotland, based on her researches into very old Scottish songs. “There are some very beautiful lyrical passages,” Cumming said, “interspersed with military themes and the sounds of battle.”

 In their half of the evening the Jazz Orchestra, directed by Dan Aldag, performs Hank Mobley’s hard bob tune “This I Dig of You,” a funk favorite by Pee Wee Ellis, and several obscure gems played originally by the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands. 

 The music starts at 8 p.m. on Saturday October 5 in Fulkerson Recital Hall. Tickets (free to HSU students with ID) are available from the HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. Produced by the HSU Music Department.  

Director's Notes: Symphonic Band

Julie Giroux
Among the selections scheduled to be played by the Symphonic Band:

 Culloden by Julie Giroux. We’re playing the third of a three movement work celebrating Scottish folk music and ancient Scottish culture. Julie Giroux is a prominent American composer who gained a lot of acclaim in the area of wind band composition. Her music is played all over the country and the world.

 She found some ancient Scottish folk song books—some went back hundreds of years, and some of these were in a kind of crude condition: just sketches of melodies and words. So this was quite a research undertaking, gathering these primary sources of Scottish folk music. She selected some songs to incorporate into this suite for concert band. Much of the piece has a military or warfare context because once you go back hundreds of years, Scotland was basically consumed by military battles—clan disputes over territory and battles with England. So you hear military fanfares, even simulated cannon fire.

 But interspersed with these calls to battle are some very beautiful lyrical passages, from these folk songs. She mentions in the program notes that some of our familiar folk songs have roots in these Scottish song sketches, including “London Bridge” and “Yankee Doodle” and several Stephen Foster tunes, like “Oh! Susannah” So what we may think of as American folk music has deeper roots.

 Old Comrades by Carl Teike.  Over the past few years I’ve slowly been working through a repertoire of European marches, and this old nugget of the band repertoire is a military march from Germany.

 Ave Maria by Franz Biebl. This piece was originally written for choir and transcribed for band by Robert Cameron. It requires the musicians to sing short excerpts of Gregorian chant. It derives its power as a piece of music from the combination of purely instrumental passages mixed with choral passages, all performed by the same musicians. It’s a very simple piece technically but does require great musical expression and control of breath and dynamics. It’s a slow, lyrical interlude that provides a contrast in this program.

--from an interview with Paul Cummings

Director's Notes: Jazz Orchestra

Hank Mobley
Among the selections the Jazz Orchestra will play:

"The Chicken"--funk favorite written by Pee Wee Ellis for James Brown. Our version gives it a salsa twist.

"Out Back of the Barn"--new arrangement of a Gerry Mulligan tune. This features Lauren Strella on baritone sax.

"A Little Peace"--a (mostly) quiet, subtle piece that combines the rhythmic feel of the Basie band with a contemporary harmonic language.

 "This I Dig Of You"--classic hard bop tune by Hank Mobley.

 "The Swizzle"--composed by the legendary Benny Carter for the Count Basie Orchestra.

 "Oclupaca"--arranger Michael Philip Mossman has given this little-known Duke Ellington piece an Afro-Cuban feel.

--Dan Aldag