Spider-Man on Broadway (staring in “I’m not dead yet (hopefully)!”)

We came across this clip the other day where part of the cast from Spidey’s (revived) Broadway show appeared on the David Letterman show.

Spidey, back on the Great White Way!

George Takei Should Be Spider-Man!

Yeah, we’re totally buying this.




Now this would get us to actually be interested in seeing the musical!

Spider-Mike, Mayor of New Dork!

According to a published article in the New York Post, The Big Apple’s mayor Bloomberg, followed up his comicbook debut with a stint mocking Broadway’s longest running non-play, Spider-Man Turn off the dark at a charity dinner sketch that, unfortunately, went awry:


New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg descended upon the stage at the annual Inner Circle charity dinner in Manhattan on Saturday dressed as Spider-Man. The Inner Circle is a gaggle of past and present City Hall reporters who roast the mayor each year, kindly allowing him a comedic comeback. In a nod to the musical that is currently bombing on Broadway, the mayor stopped halfway through the Spider-Man skit “due to technical difficulties,” according to the New York Daily News. 
Well, we were certainly entertained:

Yeah, I could vote for this guy!

Spidey Man the B'way show?

So, it turns out that the Village Voice ran a Spidey cartoon poking fun at the Broadway show in today’s paper.

As we’ve now learned that the opening for the play has been pushed back ‘til June as the show’s producers have asked Director Julie Tranor to step aside and for some extensive re-writes to fix the show.

Julie Taymor has stepped down as director of Broadway's beleaguered Spider-Man musical, according to a report.

The Across The Universe filmmaker has faced numerous problems as she fought to bring Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark to the New York stage, including crippling delays and a string of accidents which have left several castmembers injured.

 How cool is this?

In the January 17 issue of New York Magazine writer Michael Schulman wrote a preview of the Spider-Man Broadway musical Turn off the dark in which he was less than flattering about what he saw:

—at sixty-five million dollars, the most expensive Broadway musical ever staged—those elements have been compounded by death-defying aerial stunts, which, despite safety tuneups by the director, Julie Taymor, have resulted in a stream of ghastly headlines. At a flying demonstration in October, a cast member broke both wrists when he was catapulted across the stage during a slingshot maneuver. (Another actor broke a toe the same way.) Then, in previews, a lead actress sustained a concussion when she was hit in the head by a rope while standing offstage. (She later quit.) And, shortly before Christmas, a performer fell off a thirty-foot-high platform and suffered a hairline skull fracture, internal bleeding, and four broken ribs, among other injuries. He got out of rehab last week

In the article he quoted several people who said that they were going to the technical dress rehearsals in the hopes of seeing someone get hurt. Talk about your bread and circuses.

Needless to say, the latest news is that there have been more injuries and the show has been pushed back, yet again to a March opening.

We don't need no Steekin' book!

So, in a new article, Julie Taymor (the director of the problem-plagued Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark) she went on about how the play is more about the spectacle than about than actual story, “You can do spectacle on Broadway with no book and have a very successful show.” I found this quote particularly interesting, as it was essentially what Tim Burton said about the first two Batman films he directed (I spoke extensively about this in this blog's first post).

Burton had said that there were many great Batman stories, but his films weren't any of them. He then, like Taymor now, are more interested in the “make it look pretty and people will come” school of thought (which of course gave rise to crap like “Reality TV” and shows like Jerry Springer. In ancient Rome it was referred to as Bread and Circuses.

I dispute this soul-killing nonsense, as the stupid-sounding crap that it is.

Of course you need stories, that is what Stan, Jack, Steve, JRSr, and many others since have given us that made us love this medium as much as we do. Story is the thing Ms Taymor, Mr. Burton not spectacle. Spectacle is the the voice that says “fans don't want company-wide crossovers, but we’re going to do another one anyway” (You listening Joe Q.?)

You want to sell more comics? write better stories. It really is that simple. Too bad no one is listening.

It's the end of the (Spidey) world as we know it

Well, kids, the first review of the (not yet ready for prime time) Spider-Man Broadway play is in, and, well, it doesn’t look great for our hero...

From weak performances to laughable music numbers, nearly every single problem facing "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark" stems from its convoluted story. Director Julie Taymor and Glen Berger wrote the book, providing audiences with a story that's as difficult to follow as it is disrespectful towards Spider-Man's established character. Deviations from Marvel lore are to be expected; this production is meant for the mainstream masses, not the Wednesday Warriors, after all, and nearly every single comic book adaptation goes through its fair share of changes. But the musical's creative departures are both arbitrary and insulting towards Peter Parker's core beliefs.

Which leads me to wonder, why, with a proven storyline that that has held up for nearly 50 years, why would you change everything so drastically? Anyway, for the full text of this review, go here.

Personally, I want it to actually open because I'd really like to see the “final” version (that is to say not one that is in transition).

Out for Blood?

They say that people go to car races hoping to see spectacular crashes, Hockey games to see fights, and and trapeze acts secretly hoping that an artillerist will fall. We all know that whenever we are driving and see a car accident we slow down to see "what happened," so it should come as no surprise that, these days, there are many New Yorkers who are going to see technical preview performances of the Broadway musical New Yorker Magazine.

Through it all, ticket sales have soared, which raises an uncomfortable question: are people paying to see calamity? At a preview last Tuesday, members of the audience seemed conflicted. Outside the theatre, Alaina Schwartz, aged twelve, who had come from Long Island with her family, was asked if she hoped to see someone fall. “Yes! Yes!” she said. “I’m weird about that stuff. Like, there was a roller coaster and it kind of fell backwards, and I was kind of wishing that I was on that roller coaster at the time that it fell.” Her father, Steven, looked concerned. 

“I hope somebody falls but they’re O.K.,” her sister Alexa, fourteen, said.
A third sister, Stephanie, nine, objected: “If something goes wrong, that’s bad luck for us!”

In the lobby, Allie Bauer, a Yale junior, said, “There’s a certain allure to this being a very dangerous performance.”

“You’re more evil than I am,” her classmate Will Moritz said, eating a Twizzler.

After thinking it over, he added, “If I could see someone fall from the rafters but not go to the hospital—just magically get up—then I’d be down.” (He’s majoring in psychology.)

Matt Clements, a cameraman from midtown, had come to the show with his girlfriend. “She wants to see blood,” he explained.

The rest of that New Yorker can be found here

Tickets for the show can be purchased here

And the hits just keep on coming

with the dawn of the new year, thing on Broadway look even worse for our pal Spidey.

You can add Bill de Blasio, the New York City public advocate, to the list of nemeses that Spider-Man will have to battle en route to his much-delayed Broadway opening. In a letter sent to the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs, Mr. de Blasio warned that the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” may be violating consumer protection laws by not clearly distinguishing its preview period (when the show is still considered a work in progress) from its post-opening performances (when the show is a finished product), and could face fines.

Noting the premium cost of Broadway tickets, which can run $150 or more, Mr. de Blasio wrote: “At those prices, consumers deserve to know what they are purchasing, and there is a real difference between seeing an unfinished show in previews versus one that has officially opened. That many shows do not advertise that they are in previews, either in promotions or at the point of ticket sales, is unacceptable.”

Just wondering if this will ever open.

More trouble on the set of Spidey's musical

Christopher Tierney

According to last night's newscast, and today‘s Daily News gives us the story of how the harness of actor Christopher Tierney (a stunt-man playing Spider-Man) snapped and sent him plunging 30 feet from a platform into a pit below the stage, and the technical dress rehearsal was stopped as an ambulance was called to cart him off to the hospital. However, a spokesperson for the stage show says that Tierney  will recover and that the show will not shut down.

The decision was reached after a lunchtime meeting of the producer, investigators for the state Labor Department and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and a union rep from the Actors' Equity Association....

Meanwhile, state labor investigators were spotted at the Foxwoods Theater on W. 42^nd St., where the accident happened about seven minutes before the close of the Tuesday night show.

Tierney, who is a 30-year-old New York-based actor and dancer hails from Portsmouth, N.H., is in serious condition with cracked ribs and other injuries and is currently at Bellevue Hospital. Tierney is the fourth performer hurt since Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark began trial performances last month after several money-burning delays.

Director Julie Taymor called the accident “heartbreaking.”

“Nothing is more important than the safety of our Spider-Man family,” she said in a statement.

But several Broadway actors broke ranks and raged that Taymor was playing with her performers' lives to stage the $65 million spectacle, the most expensive Broadway show ever.

The play, which most recently had been pushed back to Jan. 11 (from Dec. 21), has been pushed back again ‘til Feb. In spite of  Taymor‘s upbeat attitude, there are many that think the play will never open, and even if it does, it can never make back what was spent on it.

Another injury on the set of the Spidey musical

Yep, you  heard that right, this afternoon at a tectonically dress rehearsal, one of the stunt men playing Spidey in the new B'Way musical Turn off the Dark fell several feet into the orchestra pit in front of a live audience, and was rushed to the hospital as the show was halted.

Broadway's problem-plagued Spider-Man production was halted near the end of the show last night when a stunt double's flying harness snapped, dropping him two stories into a stage pit, according to witnesses The audience sat, horrified, as the empty harness swayed over their heads and a woman—likely lead actress Natalie Mendoza—began sobbing and screaming: "Call 911." Miraculously, the 31-year-old stuntman may not be seriously injured. "All signs were good as he was taken to the hospital," said a spokesman for the $65 million musical production, Turn Off the Dark, which is in previews.

Here is a video clip from a local news program on the accident...




I hate to say it kids, but it really is beginning to look as if this show (now pushed back from its Jan 11 opening to some time in February), just might never open!

Spidey on Broadway?

According to a report in the New York Times, this past Saturday’s (attempted) full run-through of Spider-Man: Turn off the dark met with all sorts of delays and setbacks as by the dinner hour, only some 15 minutes of the show had been staged as the crew kept stopping to attend to numerous glitches in the tech aspects of the multi-million dollar extravaganza, only — according to all reports — it is just as likely to be the Great White Way’s own version of Heaven’s Gate (the 1980 Michael Cimino's bleak anti-western film that tanked to the tune of over $30 million and is generally considered one of the biggest box office bombs of all-time).

It’s supposed to be the biggest, costliest, splashiest show of the Broadway season, but so far it’s just the most troubled. Executives with “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” said Thursday that the opening of the oft-delayed, $60 million musical would be set back once again, this time by three weeks, meaning it will miss lucrative Thanksgiving week, forgo an attention-getting bow over Christmas, and open during the box office doldrums of January.

Well, this past week New York Magazine did a cover feature on the supposedly “cursed” Broadway musical. Still, director, Julie Taymor (The Lion King) remains cautiously optimistic about the play’s future, “This is a drama–rock-and-roll–circus, or a circus–rock-and-roll–drama; there’s no word for it. And what do they want? Two-character, one-set musicals? How is that helping the theater?”

Interesting enough one has to wonder how Marvel corporate views the controversy swirling around this play.

Marvel, though fiercely protective of its brand, approved many of Taymor’s inventions, not just Arachne but also a “geek chorus” of comic-book fans, a living switchblade of a villain called Swiss Miss, and, indeed, the whole structure of the drama. The bright-colored, plot-heavy first act basically tells a version of the familiar origin story: Bullied boy acquires special skills as the result of a mutated-spider bite; he gets revenge and confronts Green Goblin while bashfully courting the beautiful (and, in Taymor’s version, abused) Mary Jane. But Act Two consists almost entirely of new material. It takes Peter on a more symbolic moral journey, like the ones Taymor came to love in her studies of world theater, in which, as she describes them, enemies are both external and internal, and the gravest danger is hubris.

 Personally, we simply don’t know what to think, but we do keep hearing of  injuries to cast and crew, set pieces that don't work, and an ever-ballooning budget. Needless to say, if this white elephant (golden turkey) ever does get off the ground (both literally and figuratively), then you can fully expect us to be in that audience, thrilling to the new adventures of our favorite spandex hero.