LIKE CEOs in the troubled airline industry, “Young Frankenstein” creator Mel Brooks and producer Robert F. X. Sillerman have embarked on a cost-cutting rampage in a desperate effort to keep their Spruce Goose of a show aloft.
Their most dramatic move: slashing the lead actors’ salaries by 50 percent.
Last week, the actors – whose contracts are up in August – were told that if they want to stay in the show, they’ll have to sing and dance and knock their little hearts out for half of what they’ve been getting all year.
“It was presented as a take-it-or-leave-it deal,” a production source says. “It is not negotiable. It’s not 30 percent or maybe 35 percent. It’s 50 percent or goodbye.”
As if to drive home the point, Brooks has been meeting with possible replacements for Andrea Martin, who’s up for a Tony for her very funny turn as Frau Blucher.
The actors and their agents are interpreting that as a sign that Sillerman and Brooks mean business.
In addition to Martin, the stars likely to be affected by the cut are Roger Bart (Dr. Frankenstein), Shuler Hensley (the Monster), Fred Applegate (Inspector Kemp, the Blind Beggar) and Christopher Fitzgerald (Igor).
Sutton Foster (Inga) and Megan Mullally (Elizabeth) are both leaving the show in July. They’ll likely be replaced by nonentities who, if they’re lucky, will get paid slightly more than the kid who mans the infrared hearing stand at the Hilton.
Producers not involved in “Young Frankenstein” call the drastic salary cuts unprecedented.
“I’ve never heard of trying to get your stars to renew their contract by offering them half their salary,” one says. “It’s innovative. But everything they’ve done on this show is innovative.”
Yeah. Like the $450 ticket.
The actors and their agents are upset about the pay cuts, but unless they get a TV series, they’re unlikely to find a job as lucrative as “Young Frankenstein” – even at half their original salaries.
Sillerman, the billionaire entertainment mogul who’s learning some hard lessons on Broadway, was very generous when “Young Frankenstein” looked like a winner.
Some of the stars are earning $10,000 or more a week, sources say. They also banked bonuses when the show’s gross exceeded $1 million a week. (I suspect those days are over.)
“They’ve made a lot of money,” says a source. “It’s sour grapes if they start complaining now.”
Some of the actors would, however, like to know if Mel and director Susan Stroman are going to share the burden: Both are said to earn nearly six figures a week from the show.
I put that question to Sillerman through the show’s spokesman.
Sillerman replied: “As the winner of best new musical from the Outer Critics Circle and Broadway.com audience awards, we look forward to entertaining Broadway audiences with a night filled with laughs and entertainment for years to come.”
Among the hard lessons on Broadway Sillerman has yet to learn: An award from the Outer Critics Circle is not going to add “years” to the life of your show. An hour maybe. But not “years.”
Better stick to the cost-cutting.
On that front, here are some further suggestions for belt-tightening in Transylvania:
* Get rid of the hay in “Roll in the Hay.” If US Airways can save several hundred thousand a year by eliminating pretzels in coach, Sillerman should be able to cut costs in the property department.
* How about having just one door knocker instead of two? I hear those knockers, so popular in the movie, demanded a hefty price for their cameo. Of course, this would require some script changes – “Vow! Vhat a knocker!” – but most people know the joke, so you’ll still get a chuckle.
* Dump the hump. It’s very temperamental anyway, what with all that moving around on Igor’s back.
If Sillerman can save a few dollars here and another one there, “Young Frankenstein” just might make it to the end of the year.
WHOOPI Goldberg‘s busy putting together what she hopes will be a looser, lighter, funnier Tony Awards telecast than we’ve seen in years. She’s going to pop up as a bird in the “Circle of Life” number from “The Lion King,” and she’s going to fly over the audience at Radio City dressed as Mary Poppins.
(For a company whose latest show, “The Little Mermaid,” received very few Tony nominations, Disney sure is getting a lot of time on the telecast.)
But she should take some advice from the great Patti LuPone, who’s sure to win the Tony this year for her brilliant performance in “Gypsy.”
LuPone thinks segments from the nominated musicals should include dramatic book scenes rather than just a song.
“When we performed ‘Evita’ on the Tonys, we did the entire ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ scene,” she says. “Robert Stigwood [the producer of the musical] paid for the extra time on the show. To this day, people tell me they wanted to be in the theater because of that number on the Tonys.”
And what better musical than “Gypsy” from which to lift a dramatic book scene?
“I’d love to do the lead-up to ‘Momma’s Turn,’ ” says LuPone.
Now that would make great television.