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UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
2ND UPDATE: A spokesman for the musical said that preview performances will resume tomorrow night. “Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Actors Equity and the New York State Department of Labor have met with the Spider-Man company today to discuss additional safety protocols. It was agreed that these measures would be enacted immediately. Tomorrow’s matinee has been postponed and will be rescheduled. Tomorrow evening’s, and all subsequent performances will proceed as scheduled.” Inspectors cited “human error” as the explanation for the latest mishap.
UPDATE: New York Post columnist Michael Riedel has now confirmed that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was shut down today following the fourth injury suffered during preview performances. Actors Equity confirmed that State Department of Labor investigators are once again scrutinizing whether the show can be performed safely.
EARLIER: Another preview of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark ended last night with yet another cast member injured. This time, an actor fell into the orchestra pit, and the performance was halted just short of completion. That makes four performers injured during the early preview performances of a musical directed by Julie Taymor with music and lyrics by U2′s Bono and The Edge. Accidents on action-laden feature films sometimes happen–an extra was left disabled and disfigured in an accident on the set of Transformers 3 earlier this year–but how long before Spidey’s creatives think about toning down the sophisticated acrobatics and onstage stunts before somebody gets really hurt? People don’t go to the theater to see the visual effects extravaganza that will be evident in the 3D Spider-Man movie that Sony Pictures Entertainment just put into production. There is plenty of conflict and appeal in the Peter Parker story. Taymor’s achievement in turning The Lion King into a visual extravaganza is a hard act to follow, but maybe this is too ambitious and the priority should be in making the book as good as it can be, because an original score by two rock geniuses has got to be great. Leave the cutting-edge stunts and visual effects to Hollywood, which only has to get a tough scene on film once. It’s just too much to expect performers to execute on a nightly basis, unless it’s Cirque du Soleil. It will also be extremely difficult to transfer this musical to other cities and countries, if the expert technicians who work on Broadway are having this much trouble. This $65 million show, whose opening was postponed from January 11 to February 7 so these bugs can be worked out, will live or die based on the tunes, the narrative arc and the performances.
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Nowhere in this report is how difficult it is to open a new musical of any kind without out of town tryouts. This is incredibly ambitious and it appears this stunt person wasn’t properly harnessed. We should all hope for it to succeed and instead the press seems to be licking its chops at the prospect of failure. Broadway could use a big new hit, if anyone hasn’t noticed things are closing up fast around here lately.
I’m putting my money where my mouth is, seeing it next week.
This is why unions are such a joke these days. Supporters say unions are needed to protect the workers but here we have a production where four performers have been injured and Actors Equity is nowhere to be seen. I guess as long as the bigwigs at Actors Equity are getting paid their fat salaries, then they are happy, injured actors be damned.
What about OSHA?
And nowhere in your retort is there room for the concepts of over-ambition, hubris, greed, and self-aggrandizement. Tell a good story, and tell it well. People will come, and have employment. Attempting to “out do” everything ever seen before has more to do with the ego of a creator (who’s not really a creator of the characters) than any desire to see an industry and its workers do well.
Four people maimed by this obviously convoluted production. And 65 million dollars.. Shame on them for feeding Julie Taymor’s ego in this artistically depleted art form and depressed economy. Where are the good responsible and visionary directors… Long gone
And will you feel the same way, nyguy, when someone gets killed? Did you see the clip of the guy falling from the bridge? Someone is going to get killed on this show. Apparently that is what it is going to take to help the remaining actors because Actor’s Equity and OSHA are just going to watch it happen.
Wow. This is the most biased piece of “journalism” I’ve seen in a long time.
“There is plenty of conflict and appeal in the Peter Parker story…[T]he priority should be in making the book as good as it can be, because an original score by two rock geniuses has got to be great.”
Really? Because every report from the previews is that the book is a non-sensical mess that’s beyond saving and that the music is mediocre at best. Is this author on the take??
From watching the ’60 Minutes’ piece, I felt like the songs as sung by Bono were pretty good, he had the emotion necessary for them. When hearing the guy playing Peter Parker sing them, it just sounded completely flat with nothing at all behind them.
Love or hate Bono, at least he puts some emotion into his singing.
This is the most biased piece of journalism you’ve seen in a long time?
That is the most hyperbolic Internet comment I’ve seen in a long time…
Cheers! You got to use the word “hyperbolic” today. Mom would be proud.
Pfff…now “hyperbolic” is some big word? Might want to crack the books there, fireball.
Somebody’s going to die on this production.
Yeah, the director.
“Tone it down before someone really gets hurt”? You just said a bunch of people have already gotten hurt. Did you mean “gets really hurt”? That happened already too. In any case, I agree. 8 shows a week is brutal in any production, not sure how they’ll keep it up.
I fear Ms. Taymor won’t get the point until one of these performers is left with a life-altering injury or is killed. Somebody’s gotta shut this thing down.
The actors must be seriously desperate for work to want to injure themselves and almost get killed for a Broadway show.
I disagree. I saw the show last week and the stunts are all this play has going for it. The story is atrocious; confusing, boring, disjointed, hammy dialogue, and mostly bad acting (JJ and the Green Goblin are exceptions). And despite the musical pedigree, most of the songs are horrible as well. The stunts and set pieces are really the only entertaining things about this soon to be proven no-legged freak.
I don’t get why the article goes like this. I don’t know why they turn down the stunts while action is the best thing in this story.
I saw a preview performance this past Saturday, and the lyrics and score are two of the weakest elements of the production (aside from the abysmal second act–every second of that is awful). The songs are not written for musical theatre–they don’t move the plot forward, they aren’t catchy, and the lyrics are weak and most of the time almost completely indecipherable over the volume of the instruments. And though this may not be entirely Bono and The Edge’s fault (I’m sure Julie had a say in this), having a song about spiders trying on shoes that they’ve looted–well, come on, that doesn’t belong in any musical, let alone “Spider-Man.”
There’s a reason the Spider-Man FILMS are such a draw – because the hero does things that, given the real-world physics we all must abide by, are rather impossible. That’s where big-screen CGI comes in.
I don’t know why someone thought it prudent or necessary to attempt such feats in a theater setting, before – and more importantly above! – a live audience.
If they wanted Cirque as the show, they should have hired Cirque as the performers. Seems to me that Taymor is way over her head in this.
I’m amazed that this production hasn’t been shut down by the health and safety board yet. Just goes to show if you throw enough money at people, you can get away with murder. Perhaps literally in this case.
Everyone knows that part of the nature of live theater is that it’s never going to go 100% perfectly or 100% the same way every show. That’s one thing when the thing that goes wrong is a glass that breaks on stage or a ripped costume, but it’s quite another when it involves flying actors high above a stage AND above audience members. There’s no way they can hope to get through even a month of this show without something bad happening, let alone the lengthy run required to make back the investment.
The Peter Parker/Spider-Man story IS a great story, but they’ve forgotten that while they concentrate on all this stuff that’s better left to movies (or the circus). They should have written this show as if they only had $3000 to work with, not millions. Then maybe the book would be better.
Why is bono involved with this?
He’s one of the producers. And not just in name, he put up a significant amount of money into this.
It’s ridiculous to say they should tone down the stunts. Everyone who watched this play has said that stunts is all its got going for it, since the book is awful beyond fixing.
To have this many actors seriously injured in a Broadway production is profoundly unacceptable.
Where is Actors’ Equity Association in all this? Who is the AEA company deputy of this production and how many accident reports have been completed and filed with the union? It’s one thing for AEA to be powerless in fighting for fair wages for performers in a marketplace that is overflowing with supply and scarce in jobs, but for them to be unable to protect dues-paying veterans from a production that clearly values box office receipts over the safety of their cast is simply outrageous. And all for a comic-book rehash. Apalling.
Julie Taymor and U2′s Bono and Edge sure sound like the foundation for a terrific show for an established franchise like SpiderMan.
It appears from the comments of those who attended previews that the end product (not taking the stunts into account) is still quite weak and disappointing theater.
It is what it is, and at 65 million plus and still growing…this show has an incredible uphill climb both creatively and economically to achieve “Hit” status.
Investors look like they will do even better getting money back from Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme than from this production. Go figure!
This show will have to run for years for it to make a profit. Think of all the actors and stunt actors that will be seriously injured in that time. It needs to be shut down now and recorded in annuls of Broadway history as a costly mistake.
It should be a lesson that we need a return to original material and the search for new star talent. There is plenty of young talent out there – if only they had taken the $65 million dollars this actor-maiming musical cost and put it in a development fund for smaller, original musicals and plays, Broadway may have seen an upswing.
Why do I have the feeling this will go down as a worst-case example of the “new” Broadway spectacle-seeking mentality: that the branding and staging came first, and the book and music were almost an afterthought? “Lion King” worked not just because of the staging, but because it had a score and story that had been well-workshopped…in a great movie that had been sweated over for years by people who knew the criticality of those components.
It sounds as though this monstrosity doesn’t belong in New York, but it’s well-suited to Vegas. Mind you, that’s spoken as a huge fan of Marvel, Taymor, Cirque and U2, even.
Hmmmm…maybe they should have gone with Batman?
I was actually thinking “The Lone Ranger”. At least they could pretend to ride on horses like kids did back in the ’50′s.
I was there last night in the fifth row. It was beyond frightening. And I’m not just talking about the accident (you can already read all about that on every site… the wire snapping and flying, the screams, the “call 911!” shriek). What was just as frightening is how incredibly, incredibly, incredibly awful this show is. It has collapsed under its own weight. It’s not just a bad book, it’s NO book. There is no clear story, no passion, no tugging at heartstrings. I’m a writer so naturally and egomaniacally I spent a good part of the showing thinking, “What would I do to fix this?” There are obvious fixes and things to be done, but at a certain point I stopped thinking because I was terrified for everyone in that theatre. The flying and other various stunts are scary, but not in a thrilling way, in a truly scary way. The flying (when it works) is technically cool, but it comes out of nowhere and doesn’t move you emotionally in the least. If it rose out of a great story, a great song, characters you cared about, it would be mind-blowing and spine-tingling. Instead you have these poor actors risking their lives (and the audience’s lives… you know one of those wires is going to snap as they’re flying over the crowd one night) for a show that is so creatively and musically irresponsible that it’s… frightening. You want to cry as you see these insanely beautiful, expensive sets unfolding and moving and flashing — because they are supporting a completely empty, pointless show. All of those involved are clearly top (if not the top) talents in their fields, but they’ve lost their way under the weight of all this money and expectation. And then there’s the music. Yikes. It’s U2 so it’s hard to believe, but there is not a single song, a single hook that stays with you. These songs are just stunningly bad. High school basement band bad. I’m not a typical naysayer, and if this show wasn’t so physically dangerous I wouldn’t even be commenting here, but this is an irresponsible, terrifying production both creatively and technically. Stop the bleeding.
Dear inNY,
If you are not a writer or critic you should be. Your comment is superbly written.
Dear in NY,
Ooops!
In rereading your comment I missed the part that you are a writer, and you do write well. I should be a better reader.
Agreed.
To inNY,
Thanks for the well-written write-up. The fact this show hasn’t been shut down for safety reasons boggles the mind.
You got the egomaniac part correct…but I think you left out arrogant and conceited. And no wire snapped, and it seems you forgot that this is Spiderman. Which is a comic book…not the show to see if you want your heart tugged.
And lets not forget that currently this show is a WIP. And as a supposed ‘writer’, you above all others should be careful not to judge too quickly. Especially given the artists involved and their proven talent and past success.
As everyone knows, this is a complicated and physical show (as most new arrivals are these days on Broadway), but accidents can and will happen as the execution of the show is perfected. Your comments make you sound like a frightened little boy who believes he knows more than the professionals involved with this show. My $$ is on the professionals.
And maybe you should go see Wicked next time…that sounds more up your alley.
Kiki and Herb sent up broadway the best a few years ago when they promised to die on stage for the audience’s amusement. I’m sure danger is the one this the show has going for it, give Taymor’s disinterest in story, character or anything she can’t co-opt from another cultures theatrical tradition. She is the Joel Schumacher of the stage. Stick to the costumes so nobody has to lose a limb!
Please don’t add to the hyperbole: Two performers have been injured during preview performances – not four. Two others were injured during the rehearsal period. That total is far from unusual for a Broadway musical, in fact, it is less than many dance-based musicals and far less than any ballet.
Why are you jumping on the “there are too many injuries” bandwagon? It’s such lazy journalism when there are other things to write about.
Nonsense. Broken bones and falls from platforms are not usual events. I can’t even begin to fathom what your point is.
Come on…a torn patela tendon is not quite the same as falling 30 feet into an open pit.
Jeez Julie, calm down. Not everything works out, and with the reviews the previews are getting for Spider-Man, this will not likely be a resume filler.
You’ll get another shot – Lord knows you deserve it after the Lion King run.
I was there and it was shocking and disturbing. On top of it all, there are also a lot of kids in this particular show’s audience, and to have them exposed to such potential harm, and be eyewitness to it, should be a concern on top of the dangers to all the adults in the building. Everyone is exposed to danger at this one, and it’s also clear that there’s no guarantee that attendees will even get to see a complete production – it could have to stop at anytime for a 911 emergency. Turn Off The Show.
I saw a preview of this show and it’s a 65 million dollar waste. Goes to show what egos out of control plus 21 producers come up with. The music is bad, the book is nonsense and even the stunts underwhelming.
The only reason to go IS to actually see some daredevil gone bad stunt.
Put Julie Taymor in a harness
The real Spider-man would have had no trouble doing those stunts.