When the “Back to the Future: The Musical” rolls into the Saenger Theatre next month, there are myriad connections to New Orleans.

Marty McFly (played by Lucas Hallauer) was born here, and Nathaniel Hackmann (who plays Biff Tannen) is married to someone from the city. But, the man behind the film from its inception is screenwriter and producer Bob Gale, who attended Tulane University once upon a time.

With his partner, Bob Zemeckis, they co-wrote and created the original film from 1985. But when Gale decided, decades later, to turn the film into a musical destined for Broadway, there seemed to be blockades everywhere.

“Although our film work was known to everyone on Broadway, my not having produced a musical before made producers in New York skittish,” remembered Gale. “Although I came

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