Serious Frankenstein Musical Set for Paper Mill & Pre-B'way Tour; Bohmer & Sarich to Star

This fall, as Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein gears up for a Broadway run at the St. James Theatre, a more serious musical retelling of Mary Shelley's classic horror novel will be playing across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Frankenstein will have its world premiere in September at the Paper Mill Playhouse with Broadway stars Drew Sarich and Ron Bohmer as Frankenstein and his monster respectively. A pre-Broadway national tour is set to follow.

Frankenstein was written by a trio of Broadway neophytes: Gary P. Cohen original story adaptation, Mark Baron music and Jeffrey Jackson book and lyrics. A concept CD of the score was released in 2002 featuring Shuler Hensley, Ivan Rutherford and Rita Harvey Coincidentally, Hensley is expected to play the monster in Young Frankenstein. Bill Fennelly, who most recently was the resident director for the national tour of The Lion King, will direct the musical.

Bohmer, set to play The Creature, was most recently seen as the villain of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Woman in White, Sir Percival Glyde. He was also seen on Broadway in Les Miserables, Fiddler on the Roof and as Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Off-Broadway, he appeared in On the 20th Century, The Thing About Men, The Joys of Sex and Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit.

Sarich, who will play Victor Frankenstein, made his Broadway debut as Armand in the 2006 Broadway musical Lestat. He can currently be seen in the ensemble of Les Miserables playing a variety of roles. Sarich also appeared on the New York stage in off-Broadway's Tony n' Tina's Wedding and subsequently toured as a back-up singer for Liza Minnelli. In 1999, he made a splash playing Quasimodo in the Berlin production of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame.

A play version of Frankenstein famously opened and closed at the Palace Theatre on Broadway on the same night: January 4, 1981. Featured in the cast, under the direction of Tom Moore the original Grease were John Carradine, David Dukes, John Glover and Dianne Wiest.