Franken-steen or Franken-stine?

That's just one of the musical questions in "Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein: The Musical," making its Lehigh Valley debut, Oct. 10 - 26, as Civic Theatre of Allentown opens its 2014 - '15 season at the Nineteenth Street Theatre, 527 N. 19th St., Allentown.

Frankenstein is pronounced "Frankenstine." In the German language, when there are two vowels, the second vowel is pronounced (for example: Oscar Hammerstein, Michael Feinstein).

Proper pronunciation or not doesn't stop Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in "Young Frankenstein," Mel Brooks' movie of the musical on which it's based. Frederick, aka young Frankenstein, wants to distance himself from his mad-doctor family, including pronouncing his last name "Frankensteen."

"Young Frankenstein: The Musical," which is set in Transylvania, fits right in with the Halloween season and the film's 40th anniversary.

"There are some surprises within the production that are very Halloween-ish," says Civic Theatre of Allentown Artistic Director William Sanders, director and choreographer of Civic's "Young Frankenstein."

"The characterizations are homages to the original characters," Sanders says.

"Young Frankenstein" is the 35th area play debut for Civic during Sanders' tenure there.

In the Civic production:

Jarrod Yuskauskas, Director of Theatre Arts, Upper School at Moravian Academy, is Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Marty Feldman in the movie), grandson of monster-maker, Dr. Victor Frankenstein;

Morgan Reilly, a Muhlenberg College senior, plays Inga (Teri Garr in the movie), a lab assistant;

Noah Ruebeck, a Moravian Academy senior, is Igor (pronounced "Eye-gore," played by Marty Feldman in the movie), Frederick's sidekick;

Eileen Veghte, a Muhlenberg College senior, plays Elizabeth, Frederick's fiancé (Madeline Kahn in the movie);

Roseann Damico Schatkowski, Director of Marketing for Performing Arts at DeSales University, is Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman in the movie);

Bob Trexler is The Monster,

And, in a casting switch, JoAnn Basist plays Inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars in the movie).

The cast of 22 includes: Connor Harrison, Gianna Beleno, Kate Varley, Kirk Lawrence-Howard, Kristen Sehn, Kristen Stachina, Marie Ann Sutera, Nina Attinello, Pamela Westphal, Patrick Mertz, Reese Diaz, Robert Stinner and Ted Williams.

Steve Reisteter is music director. There's a 13-piece orchestra. Gwen Swanson-Vigorito is assistant choreographer.

"Young Frankenstein: The Musical," which opened on Broadway in November 2007, has a book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan (they co-wrote the 2005 musical, "The Producers," based on Brooks' 1968 film) with music and lyrics by Brooks. The movie screenplay was written by Wilder and Brooks, who directed the movie.

The musical includes the production number from the film, Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On The Rtiz," with The Monster singing and dancing in top hat and tails.

As with the film, the musical is heavy on double-entendres, including the songs, "Please Don't Touch Me," sung by Elizabeth, and "Roll In the Hay," sung by Inga.

"The thing that's retained from the movie is all the lines and a lot of bawdy humor," Sanders says.

"Our original impulse is to do an homage to the original film," says Sanders. "They were rightly creating a Broadway musical. What we're trying to do is add more of a sensibility of what that original movie is like."

Mel Brooks' 1974 film is a spoof of "Frankenstein," 1931; "The Bride of Frankenstein," 1935; "Son Of Frankenstein," 1939, and "The Ghost Of Frankenstein," 1942, which were based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, "Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus."

In keeping with the pristine black and white visuals of the Universal Studios' horror films, Sanders said of Civic's production, with set design by Jason Sherwood and lighting design by Will Morris:

"It's all black and white, meaning everything is black and white, with small surprising touches of color.

"That's one of my biggest memories of the movie, that it's black and white," Sanders continues. "There's something so Halloween about black and white."

Tickets: civictheatre.com, 610-432-8943