Marc Shaiman described his new show, “Some Like It Hot,” to Page Six as “a big f–king great musical comedy.”
“My Judaism overrides any ability to enjoy,” the “Hairspray” composer told us Friday night at a star-studded cocktail party celebrating the show, which is based on the 1959 Marilyn Monroe movie of the same name.
“Although I shouldn’t make jokes anymore in this anti-Semitic world but I’m always just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Despite his tempered enthusiasm, the Tony winner, 63, went on to explain that the musical comedy — co-written with longtime collaborator Scott Whitman — is “very contemporary in our themes.”
Shaiman said that the tweaks that differentiate the show from the original screenplay, which also starred Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, have been minor.
“The changes we’ve had to make have been in the wonderful position of, ‘How can we shine this up?’” he explained.
“But it’s never like, ‘What the f–k are we going to do now?’ So I have slept, but everything I say, I feel like I’m cursing it.”
Like the film, the musical follows the story of jazz-age musicians struggling during Prohibition – but now features black actors and updates the theme of gender.
The show also deals with the movie’s immortal last line — “nobody’s perfect” — in “a very wonderful way,” Shaiman teased.
Shaiman, who recently scored the Billy Eichner rom-com, “Bros,” also wowed the crowd at the star-studded party with a performance of the show’s title number.
“Some Like It Hot” is currently in previews and opens Dec. 11.
