How Christopher Gattelli crafted 'Death Becomes Her'

When he was first asked to helm the Broadway hit musical "Death Becomes Her," director and choreographer Christopher Gattelli loved it, but refused to work on the big, splashy opening number. It was just too delicious.

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"When they sent it to me, I was cooking and I burnt dinner because my mind was spinning," he says. "I was, like, 'This is a gift. I will never get an opening number like this again.'" So Gattelli worked out everything else about how to put Robert Zemeckis' 1992 comic cult classic onto a stage and only then turned to the big, brassy song, "For the Gaze," a winking valentine to gay men, punning along the way.

"I was able to do the show and then have my full brain on that number because I knew the potential of what it could be," he says.

What Gattelli crafted is an opening number for the ages, led by Megan Hilty: There are mid-song costume changes, dance breaks, chorus boys hoisting Hilty, spangly jumpsuits and tuxedos, high-kicking Vegas showgirls with feather headdresses, a body double doing somersaults, a rainbow flag of top-hatted dancers, and Hilty doing a Liza Minnelli cameo, all ending with the grand finale of Hilty as Judy Garland's Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz," complete with a little stuffed dog.