The first day of rehearsal was more like a reunion for the cast of "The Producers" on Monday. All but three people -- one of them being the specially billed David Hasselhoff -- have done the musical before.

The first-day "meet and greet" was a Broadway tradition carried to the hallway in front of a rehearsal studio on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus. Hasselhoff wasted no time in sussing out marketing plans for the show and volunteering his own circle of celebrities -- and celebrity journalism media contacts -- for the red-carpet gala on Feb. 9 at Paris Las Vegas. "I'll do everything we can to make sure we sell this thing out," he told his castmates.

"I'll be happy to be the draw," he said.

However, The Hoff wanted it known from the get-go that he considered it "really embarrassing" to be called the star of what he terms "an ensemble piece."

" 'Baywatch' was an ensemble piece," he added. " 'Knight Rider' was me in a car. ... And the car was not gay," he added, because he gets asked all the time.

Mel Brooks' comic musical opens Jan. 31. Nevada residents get a preview ticket price of $60 for seven performances through Feb. 7, before Feb. 8 and 9 are blacked out for invited guests.

Larry Raben will play Leo Bloom to Brad Oscar's Max Bialystock; both have played the roles on Broadway. Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane originated the roles on Broadway in 2001.

Director Susan Stroman is to arrive Wednesday; associate director Steven Zweigbaum runs things until then. Brooks didn't make the meet and greet, but his associate-producer son Eddie did.

One of the newbies is Las Vegan Erick R. Walck, who hasn't been in an Actors Equity union show since "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" at the Flamingo in 2000. He's been biding his time with everything from local TV spots to hosting at the MGM Grand lion habitat.

Walck found age was on his side with this particular title. He will perform in the ensemble but understudy some of the larger roles. Another local, Katrina Loncaric, went from Bally's "Jubilee!" to five months in the Broadway company of "The Producers" -- where she understudied the role of sexy secretary Ulla -- and now returns to Las Vegas to do the same.

The main Ulla joins the cast on Monday. Publicists wanted to withhold her name, but she, too, is a veteran of the show, and her name won't usurp Hasselhoff as the most famous on the marquee.

The cast's biggest challenge may be remembering what lines have been cut in this abridged 90-minute version. Oscar, who was in the original cast as Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind, recalls the first preview in Chicago ran three hours and 15 minutes. "The audience laughter added 10 minutes," he says.

Even though so many of the actors know the show, "You throw the whole thing up in the air and it all comes down in a different way," Zweigbaum noted. ...

As one Broadway musical prepares to open, "Mamma Mia!" has announced its end game. It may be a new precedent for a Las Vegas show to say it will close so far into the future: "late summer" of 2008. The news was announced last week, but the "why" was vague.

Insiders point out a couple of reasons. First, there is no reason to assume anything but Cirque du Soleil will replace the ABBA musical. Cirque and MGM Mirage have one of the strongest marriages in the entertainment industry. While locals may be aghast at the notion of Cirque No. 8, the company has yet to make a stumble it couldn't correct in terms of ticket sales.

But a Cirque show takes about two years to develop. If the company opens a Criss Angel collaboration at Luxor this year and its Elvis Presley show at CityCenter in 2009, it can't wait until those two are finished to get started at Mandalay Bay. News was bound to start leaking.

(Neither Cirque nor MGM Mirage have owned up to any of this. Sources all come from the "Mamma Mia!" side.)

Faced with the choice of coming clean or trying to beat back the inevitable rumors over the fate of "Mamma Mia!" MGM and producer Judy Craymer chose the refreshingly candid approach, which keeps the cast feeling more secure.

The strategy also opens the door to "countdown campaigns" that are common on Broadway but new to the Strip. When the show heads into the home stretch, ads urging audiences to "Hurry -- only (X ) more weeks!" can turn the last couple of months into some of the most successful of a show's run.

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays.