Brooks and his team hope to be puttin’ on a hit by streamlining his show

can tell you what Mel Brooks is doing for Halloween: reanimating his Broadway musical “Young Frankenstein.”

Brooks, along with cowriter Tom Meehan and director Susan Stroman, has taken a bone saw to the 2007 show, paring it down to a brisk two hours.

“I cut that lousy opening number!” Brooks told a friend a few weeks ago.

“But, Mel — you wrote that lousy opening number,” the friend said.

“I know! And now I’m cutting it!”

The revised “Young Frankenstein” will have an out-of-town tryout later this year in Newcastle, England (that’s really out of town), and if all goes well, should end up in a West End theater in the spring with Shuler Hensley, who played the monster on Broadway. There’s no talk yet of a New York production, but if it works in London, don’t be surprised to see it here.

(For a reminder of just how great the movie is, check out Brooks’ new book, “Young Frankenstein: The Story of the Making of the Film.”)

“Young Frankenstein” followed Brooks’ “The Producers,” which won a record 12 Tonys. But despite a cast that included Andrea Martin, Roger Bart, Megan Mullally and Sutton Foster, “Young Frankenstein” didn’t live up to expectations. Critics found it lumpy, listless and only intermittently funny — especially after its producer, Robert Sillerman, proudly announced a top ticket price of $450 (a bargain these days).

“Young Frankenstein” ran 485 performances without recouping its $16 million investment. But it’s performed regularly in stock and amateur theaters, and is always a crowd pleaser. I was pretty tough on the original production, but I’ve come to like the score. Brooks, Meehan and Stroman have since cut several songs that stopped the show cold.

“It’s tighter and brighter and, with a good cast, has a shot,” says a source.

You might say, “It’s alive!”

HE bitter feud over billing between Ars Nova and Howard Kagan, the producers of Broadway’s “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” continues to smolder.

Sources say a peace treaty was worked out Wednesday, when the parties drafted a tentative agreement on the billing, but Kagan refused to sign it Thursday. “We’re dumbfounded,” says a production source.

Ars Nova originated “Great Comet” five years ago. The contract calls for the show to be billed on Broadway as “the Ars Nova production of . . .”

Kagan ignored the clause, precipitating the dispute.

As of Thursday, Kagan still planned to record the show’s cast album on Dec. 5, the same day as Ars Nova’s benefit. Pressure, I’m told, is mounting for star Josh Groban to skip the recording to appear, as promised, at the benefit.

“He’d be a hero on Broadway,” a veteran producer says.

Kagan’s co-producers are getting restless, fearing the public feud is threatening to overwhelm the show.

But sources say Kagan is reveling in being Broadway’s No. 1 baddie: “He thinks he’s David Merrick,” says one.

A spokesman for the show refused to comment.

“It’s tighter and brighter and, with a good cast, has a shot.” — A source on Mel Brooks’ newly revised “Young Frankenstein”