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The Spider-Man Broadway Musical Goes Off Without a Hitch

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (24)

Spider-Man-6292509 (1).jpg

After months and months of delays, bad press, and the biggest Broadway budget of all time, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the Broadway musical featuring the music of Bono and the Edge, finally unleashed its first preview.

It was not entirely a success. In fact, according to the New York Times, there were several major glitches, including a moment where Spider-man was left dangling above audience members, as cast members attempted to grab him by the foot. That led to a 50-minute intermission. All in all, it was a three-and-a-half hour experience, counting intermission and delays, marred by several other snafus.

Still, it had to be kind of cool to be the first to see Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, a $65 million production directed by Julie Taymor, who also directed The Lion King for Broadway. Not only for the huge fucking spectacle, but because you never know if Spider-Man might get tangled up in a harness or launched out into the audience. The fear of physical danger is so rare on Broadway.

And if you’re curious, there’s now a television commercial for the production. It doesn’t give away a lot, but technical glitches or no, I would totally see that. If only it weren’t what must be $100 a ticket.











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Comments

I much prefer spectacular failure to mediocre success.

Fly, Spider-Man, fly right into the front row.

Posted by: twig at November 29, 2010 10:29 AM

Technical glitches I've read about:

1) A brand new character to the Spideyverse got stuck above the audience in a harness for eight minutes in the first song of the show. This was her entrance.

2) The skyscraper Mary Jane needed saving from broke, so she magically appeared out of nowhere in Spider-Man's arms...

3) Where he set her down on stage and then got stuck just past the point where he could have removed himself from the harness at the end of Act I.

4) One character who plays the piano vamped for a few minutes when his set piece didn't roll off the stage and nothing was happening.

5) A rope fell off a set piece and landed in the audience (no one was injured, so the show isn't shuttering, thank goodness).

Two of these halted the show for 30 minutes. Intermission went for about 45 minutes. This was after the show started 25 minutes late. How I wish I could have been there to see an audience member revolt and get booed until she cried for complaining about the quality of the first preview performance of a Broadway musical.

Posted by: Robert at November 29, 2010 10:46 AM

Julie Taymor never directed fucking Shrek. Are you guys joking, or just bad at fact checking? Come on!

Maybe you were thinking of the Lion King. Is that it? The Lion King, still running on Broadway over 10 years later, considered to be one of the most groundbreaking musicals of all time?

Or Shrek, which closed in a little under a year and a half.

Seriously, this site should show Broadway and legit theater a little respect.

Posted by: Withnails at November 29, 2010 10:53 AM

Withnails, I jumped off the "respect theater" ship around here a long time ago. There is very little cross-over between NYC theater fans and Pajiba (save Bret Michaels getting knocked out at the Tonys), though the occasional comment diversion is rewarding. It's a film site first and mistakes are made. If you catch something like that, e-mail the writer or Dustin. They're quick to fix mistakes like that. I don't know why Dustin's byline is missing, but you can find the info under the "overlords" link on the top of the page.

Posted by: Robert at November 29, 2010 11:04 AM

Seriously, this site should show Broadway and legit theater a little respect.

Did we start respecting things? Does this mean I need to start wearing pants?

Posted by: twig at November 29, 2010 11:05 AM

Never start wearing pants.

Posted by: coveredinbees at November 29, 2010 11:18 AM

Yeah...Julie Taymor definitely did not direct Shrek. That was Jason Moore, director of Avenue Q among other things.

I agree with Robert that this is a FILM site first. As a theatre artist, I don't believe that this site needs to respect theatre any more than it respects theme park entertainment...but facts are facts and a quick check of Wikipedia would have prevented this mistake.

In conclusion, I hope we can all agree that no one wants twig to have to start wearing pants.

Posted by: Toph at November 29, 2010 11:20 AM

Also, I read that some people are paying $140 bucks for the PREVIEWS, which can run around 3 1/2 hours...with multiple glitches. Really? I do theatre for a living, I don't want to use the precious little time when I'm not in rehearsal to go... watch people rehearse. (especially a production with more money than I will ever work with in my entire career combined...seriously.)

Posted by: Toph at November 29, 2010 11:25 AM

soo.... giant, expensive trainwreck?

Jesus. As a former stage manager, I am flinching at the thought of ANY of those mistakes happening, let alone at that level. It just sounds painful.

Posted by: linny at November 29, 2010 12:13 PM

"If only it weren’t what must be $100 a ticket. "

Is anything on Broadway going for less than a c-note these days? I can't remember ever spending less than that and I haven't been to Broadway for a decade.

Posted by: ed newman at November 29, 2010 12:16 PM

Fuck it, I'd see the show once most of the kinks got worked out. It looks awesome. @ed newman, there are a few shows that have tickets going for less than $100. When I saw Rock of Ages last year I believe I only paid $70 for the ticket. Maybe a bit more or less, I can't remember exactly but I do know that it was way less than $100.

Posted by: stardust at November 29, 2010 12:30 PM

Quick. Someone yell at Dustin because everything's in italics.

Posted by: anikitty at November 29, 2010 1:43 PM

DUSTIN EVERYTHING IS IN ITALICS!!

He can't hear me. I'm not making sound.

Posted by: superasente at November 29, 2010 2:10 PM

Is anything on Broadway going for less than a c-note these days? I can't remember ever spending less than that and I haven't been to Broadway for a decade.


Ed's exaggerating. I've been in/near NYC for most of my 34 years - and 10 years ago I could (and did) get house seats for $85. Today, yeah, top seats go for $140 and "premium" seats are more, but you only pay full price if you insist on seeing the huge shows right away, or are too foolish/lazy/rich to look up Broadway discounts - there are a kajillion out there.

Posted by: Sara Tonin at November 29, 2010 2:43 PM

I live in NYC, and I go to the theater about 3-5 times a week, and I hardly ever pay full price - most of the stuff I can get for discounts. Hell, even cheaper than a movie ticket. i'm talking broadway, off, etc.

And the simple fact is that a lot of the movies that we love, hate, scream at, masturbate crying to, have gotten their start on the stage. And when we don't realize this, we lose a lot of the creative process, and understanding of the people who made these films.

People talk about first time screenwriters as if they've never written a damned thing before. But a lot of these beginning filmmakers, Adam Rapp, Elizabeth Meriwether, have been making theater for years. And they're good at it.

Rant over.

Posted by: Withnails at November 29, 2010 3:58 PM

And, if this is a film site, then why am I posting on a page about a Broadway musical, correcting a fact about a Broadway director?

If this is a film site, why do we have postings about TV shows, Cannonball Reads, the occasional music post, etc?

Why can't we enjoy all the meats in our cultural stew?

Like the Ballet?

http://gowns.tumblr.com/post/314154190/i-enjoy-all-the-meats-of-our-cultural-stew

Posted by: Withnails at November 29, 2010 4:06 PM

Withnails - booyah. Let's go see some cheap theatre. Do you belong to a seat-filling service? (I do play-by-play).

I realize at least once a year that the reason I hardly every see movies is because I average about one play a week....

Posted by: Sara Tonin at November 29, 2010 4:15 PM

"Why can't we enjoy all the meats in our cultural stew?

Like the Ballet?"


Oh, everything is beautiful at the ballet!

Posted by: Craig at November 29, 2010 5:36 PM

And... Italics off.

Posted by: DarthBrookes at November 29, 2010 6:14 PM

Off damnit!

Posted by: DarthBrookes at November 29, 2010 6:16 PM

I give up.

...

Ugh!

Posted by: DarthBrookes at November 29, 2010 6:17 PM

leave it to pajiba to start a theatre war over spider-man the musical.

Posted by: idleprimate at November 29, 2010 8:32 PM

Sara Tonin - I'm game. how do we do this?

Posted by: Withnails at November 29, 2010 10:22 PM

Well, I agree with what you wrote, but not with all of it. Regardless, it’s all good material. Thanks!

Posted by: Wicked The Musical at February 2, 2011 6:19 AM