You have a classic movie. You want a shiny new musical for the stage. How do you get there? * In the case of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' world-premiere production of the 1948 film "Easter Parade," it was a time-consuming journey of hard work and luck, connections and craft, old-style music and contemporary sensibilities. * Though the suburban playhouse has been around for nearly four decades, this is the first time the company has built a new musical from the ground up with local talent. Here's how it happened.

PICK SOMETHING GOOD BUT NOT PERFECT

"The wonderful thing for me about 'Easter Parade' is that it's well-known but not really a classic."

That's Tom Briggs talking. He wrote the book — the spoken part of the script — for the new Chanhassen production, and he said one of the secrets of making a good stage musical out of a film is to pick a title with enough name recognition to capture attention, yet enough room for improvement to make a stage adaptation worthwhile.

"People know the songs, of course, and they know that it starred Judy Garland and Fred Astaire," Briggs continued. "But you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who could really tell you the plot."

Choosing "Easter Parade" meant the Chanhassen team wouldn't be working in the long shadow of a beloved movie, the way it did last summer when the theater produced "Singin' in the Rain."

"The problem with doing a stage version of something like 'Singin' in the Rain,'" said Chanhassen artistic director Michael Brindisi, "is that the movie was pretty much perfect the way it was. The formula is to find something that isn't perfect and enhance it."

"Easter Parade" tells the story of a hoofer (originally played in the film by Astaire) who's dumped by his partner (Ann Miller) and then plucks a girl (Judy Garland) out of the crowd, reasoning that he can teach anyone to dance. Along with the well-known title song, the movie includes tunes like "I Love a Piano," "Steppin' Out With My Baby" and "A Couple of Swells."

The familiar title and the marquee name of composer Irving Berlin made "Easter Parade" a tantalizing title for an adaptation. But the folks at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, which administrates the rights to Berlin's work, had enjoyed only middling success with their first attempt to transfer a movie musical to the stage.

"State Fair," based on a lesser-known Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical from 1945, made it to Broadway in 1996 but fizzled and closed after only three months.

Chanhassen was the first theater in the country to stage "State Fair" after the Broadway bomb. Briggs, who wrote that libretto as well, was part of an R&H contingent that came to Minnesota to see the 1997 production.

"I saw Michael's production of 'State Fair,' " he said. "If that had been the Broadway production, it would still be running today."

The Chan production ran for a year. That success planted the seed of an idea — one that took a decade to germinate. Meanwhile, a stage version of "Easter Parade" with higher star wattage burst onto the scene and faded: Sandy Duncan and Tommy Tune were lined up for a Broadway incarnation in 1997. Two New York readings, a workshop in Australia and several delays later, the project died quietly and "Easter Parade" languished.

In 2006, the R&H folks rang up Chanhassen's Brindisi with a proposal: Would the suburban dinner theater like to try its hand at a world premiere?

MAKE SURE EVERYONE SAYS OK

"I was visiting my folks in Allentown last year and was on the bus into New York to see a couple shows. My cell phone rang, and it was the R&H people. They said, 'Where are you?' I said, 'I'm on a bus on the way into the city.' They said, 'Don't go to your hotel. Come right to our offices.' When I got there, they were all waiting for me, saying that they wanted to sign off on the deal."

That's Michael Brindisi, explaining how months of negotiations with the theater culminated. But once the theater and the agency agreed, there were still hoops to jump through.

Berlin was a prolific songwriter and a savvy businessman. When he died in 1989 at the age of 101, he left his estate in the hands of his three daughters, who are, in the words of R&H vice president Charlie Scatamacchia, "all incredibly smart women who take the responsibilities they've been left very, very seriously."

They had to sign off on the adaptation. So did the theatrical arm of Warner Bros., the film studio that administers the rights to old MGM films like "Easter Parade." Of course, the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization, which approves everything from commercial jingles to ballets using Berlin's music, had to give its final blessing to the script.

And then there were the songs. The film version of "Easter Parade" had only 13 tunes — not really enough to make a stage musical. And one of the best-known, "I Love a Piano," couldn't be used, as it had shown up in another Berlin movie-to-musical adaptation: the production of "White Christmas" that played the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts earlier this winter.

But the composer's ample trunk of songs meant there was plenty left over. The prolific Berlin wrote well over a thousand tunes and published about 800 of them. Briggs culled through the catalog for a half-dozen more songs — including a tune called "Let's Take an Old-Fashioned Walk," which was written for and then cut from the movie version of "Easter Parade."

WRITE. REWRITE. REPEAT.

"There's this great feeling of immersion for all of us. I hear the music in my dreams, which may or may not be a good thing. We always feel like a team going in, but because we've all been so involved making the decisions about how this show is going to look and sound and how it's going to be crafted, there's a real sense of ownership in this show."

That's musical director Tom Mustachio, talking about the months of rewrites, the endless tinkering and the weeks of rehearsal that have gone into the making of "Easter Parade."

It has been a different process for Chanhassen, which specializes in breathing new life into old musicals. Instead of being handed a script, score and orchestrations, the theater started the process with little more than a copy of the screenplay and some sheet music.

Briggs, who helped move "State Fair" from screen to stage, is the only out-of-towner on the creative team. He and Brindisi had four days' worth of marathon sessions around a conference table in Brindisi's office to hammer out an initial version of the script.

"The good bones of a story were there," Briggs said. "But the plot is no big deal; there really isn't much that happens. So we needed to make it more character-driven, make them a little more feisty."

The script has gone through a half-dozen revisions since then, along with innumerable tweaks, buffs and polishes. There have been some changes in how the characters relate to each other — and who winds up with whom in the end.

The orchestral charts from the movie version are long gone — they wouldn't have been of much use for the smaller, 10-person musical ensemble Chanhassen uses for big musicals. And so Mustachio was tasked to convert sheet music — written for piano — into an orchestral score, complete with room for dance sequences, underscoring dialogue and incidental music.

Mustachio has done all of those things before but never all at once. With "Easter Parade," he's doing the job three or four people might do on a new Broadway musical.

"It's a thrill knowing that this didn't exist before we created it," he said. "It allowed some tremendous creative freedom. And because I know the cast and I know the people who would be singing these songs, I was able to imagine them in their moments onstage. From there, it just flowed."

INTO REHEARSAL

"It's been nice to have a say in what key you can sing a song or how a line is changed — you don't get that in a typical musical."

That's Ann Michels, who plays the Judy Garland role in "Easter Parade," talking about the comparatively luxurious rehearsal schedule for "Easter Parade."

Big musicals at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres are invariably produced in a short time frame: three weeks of rehearsals, three days of "tech" — setting up sound, lights and scene changes with the actors onstage — and one week of preview performances before the critics arrive.

Staging a world premiere bought the company a little more time. "Easter Parade" will have had one more week of rehearsal and one more week of previews before Friday's official opening night. All of the company are locals, except for New York actor Michael Gruber, who plays the leading-man role of Don Hughes [sic] created by Fred Astaire in the movie. Gruber has a long list of credits in regional theaters and on Broadway, where brand-new shows frequently have a monthlong workshop, six weeks of rehearsals and a full month of preview performances.

The process at Chanhassen is compressed, but Gruber praised the way the suburban dinner theater is putting things together.

"We've been tucked away in this safe environment, and it's been very collaborative. Michael and Tom and Tam (Kangas, the choreographer) come in with ideas and a road map, but they're completely open to ideas we have. That's not always the case. There are directors out there who aren't really interested in what actors think."

In the early weeks of rehearsal, actors may have worked a comparatively leisurely schedule of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and not all cast members were called to all rehearsals. Rehearsals have been ramping up in length and intensity. By "tech week," actors were working "ten-out-of-twelves" — 10 hours of rehearsal plus a couple of hourlong meal breaks.

Though this production will cost more than the $250,000 or so Chanhassen usually spends on a production, the theater's budget is far from the millions Broadway will lay out to get a new musical on its feet.

"What you lose is what you gain," Gruber said philosophically. "The show might not look as perfect as a Broadway production. But because of that, this piece has more fluidity. You don't have costumers complaining that someone has to wear a costume because it was built for them. You don't have producers screaming that the show has to be a big hit because we spent $3 million on it.

"They have an audience here, and they have this safe environment to play," Gruber continued. "If we hit the mark the first time, great. If we don't, we can just try it a different way."

TODAY CHANHASSEN, TOMORROW …?

"In terms of the show's next step, there are no commitments, but there's certainly a lot of interest. Some of Chanhassen's colleagues on the dinner and regional theater circuit are going to be interested. Everything's on the table."

That's Bert Fink, the senior vice president of communications at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, talking about what could happen to "Easter Parade" once Chanhassen completes its run.

The plan is that this version will become the template for future professional and amateur productions. It would go into the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog, adding one more musical to the canon and another opportunity for Irving Berlin's estate to benefit from his genius.

"We chose Chanhassen because we knew the piece would be in good hands artistically," said Scatamacchia, who's in charge of distribution rights for Rodgers and Hammerstein properties.

Chanhassen's production schedule also factored into the decision: "Because they're an institution that does long runs, that affords us the opportunity to invite theaters from around the country to actually see the show on its feet," Scatamacchia said. "Those factors really conspired to make 'Easter Parade' at Chanhassen a perfect opportunity."

No one's mentioning the B-word — Broadway — with this production. And while it's a long shot, it's not out of the realm of possibility. "State Fair," after all, finally made it to the Great White Way after a long road tour.

"That's not why we're doing this, and it's not what any of us expect," Briggs said. "And it doesn't have to happen for us to feel satisfied with what we've done. We've put a new musical out into the world. I hope that the Berlin daughters and the people from R&H love it and that every high school and summer stock theater in the country wants to do it."

"I have two hopes," said director Brindisi. "I hope that the audiences go away getting what the play's about — the idea that you shouldn't waste your life; you should live it.

"And yes, I do hope that we get another shot to do this — to make a new musical. There are some projects out there that are even more exciting in terms of possibilities for developing stories. So, my second hope is that we get more projects like this. But if I only get the first hope, I'll be happy."