YOUTHS LINE UP TO ACT LIKE MONKEES

About 2,000 aspiring actors and musicians lined up this week hoping to prove in an open-call audition that they have the zaniness it takes to star in the “New Monkees”--a 1980’s remake of the old TV show.

Standing in the line of hopefuls on West 52nd Street were serious performers as well as high-spirited young men and women who were auditioning for the first time because of their love of the original Monkees rock group.

“I am a Monkee, I’ve always been a Monkee. I’ve watched the Monkees since I was a little kid,” said George Angelich, 18, of White Plains, N.Y., looking very much the teen-ager of the 1980’s in his colorful knee-length pants and short haircut.

Of his performance talents, he said, “I can sing in the bathroom.”

Brent Baxter, 20, and his brother, Bryan, 18, both musicians, were up at 4:30 a.m. to catch a train from their home in Arlington, Va. to stand in line with guitars in hand for the audition.

“Having this kind of publicity would be nice,” Bryan, a Yorktown High School senior, said of the stardom that could come to the new Monkees. “Girls would see you all over the states.”

“I’m not interested in the publicity. But, it would put you in the position where you could have some money--start a career,” his older brother reflected.

Inside the studio, Steve Blauner, the creative executive of the original television series who decided to develop “New Monkees” for today’s young audience, watched a Monkee hopeful sing with gusto while playing the piano.

In association with Columbia Pictures Television, Blauner of Straybert Productions Inc. plans to have the show ready for television by September, 1987.

His objective is not to remake what he did in the 1960’s--with Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork--but to put together a new show with a “now-generation” twist.

The inspiration to update the Monkees, Blauner said, came from his 14-year-old daughter, Moon, who approached him two years ago, asking why he no longer had any Monkees albums when the music was becoming all the rage in clothing boutiques in their hometown of Malibu, Calif.

What makes the show’s basic concept still relevant today, he said, is “the funny irreverent humor made for young people” that has been the Monkees trademark.