The Playgoer

Today's Roundup

2009-12-04T12:39:00.003-05:00

-Show with the buzz at the moment in NY is Cate Blanchett's visiting production of Streetcar Named Desire from her Australian company. Critic-O-Meter says? B+. Skim the reviews.

-San Diego's Old Globe adds a snazzy new 2nd space, education center, and restaurant. Not bad for lean times.

-Variety gives more details on the Oleanna closing. Bottom line: Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles are apparently no longer "stars."

-Playwrights take note: "West London’s Bush Theatre has this week launched a pioneering social networking website which allows playwrights to post their work online for producers and directors to read and commission." Can it happen here? Should it? (The Bush, by the way, has the rep as one of the BEST London theatres for new writing.)

Subsidized Actor Training

2009-12-03T07:22:00.000-05:00

It's not an MFA program but the Portland Actors Conservatory can now at least boast substantial scholarships:

Portland Actors Conservatory is now authorized to disburse up to a projected $107,000 in Federal funding for students admitted to its Two Year Conservatory program upon completion of that FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). One year after the Board of Directors voted to begin the application process, the Conservatory has received its first disbursement of Title IV funds from Federal Financial Aid.
“Providing federal financial aid increases the accessibility of our Conservatory program immeasurably,” said Nurella Doumitt, executive director. “A fulltime study of acting is now possible for a great number of people for whom it would have been previously unthinkable.”
The projected funds allow for a financial aid award of up to $14,850 per student. This sum covers the $8,500 annual tuition, as well as living, travel, books, and other expenses.

Of course, the goal of an MFA actor should always be to get a "free ride" out of the school. But those offers are, of course very, very competitive. So this is an attractive alternative, especially for actors who already are or want to make a career in the Northwest.

Today's Roundup

2009-12-02T14:43:00.001-05:00

-What a true Broadway hit in 2009 looks like: Wicked grosses $2mil in one week.

-Timberlake Wertenbaker accuses the London critics of being too drunk to appreciate her latest play. (Whether the play merited better or not, I do indeed try to abstain from booze pre-theatre if I'm reviewing. Save that for the writing.)

-The story behind the woman behind the play behind the musical behind the movie: read about Maurine Dallas Watkins, playwright of the original (non-musical) Chicago and So Help Me God, currently being resurrected by The Mint.

-Did you know the real life Fela Kuti died of AIDS? Funny that on Broadway, "Fela!" does not.

-The Obamas had their Joe Turner night. The Clintons--The 39 Steps??? Well it is pretty white. And kinda over. (Actually the reason is more random: "current 39 Steps understudy Nisi Sturgis’ grandfather is Bill’s former mentor." Check out Broadway Buzz's slideshow, too.)

Roundabout Rentals?

2009-12-02T09:18:00.003-05:00

Michael Riedel today speculates that Roundabout may be giving up on original content even more than their usual "imports" have indicated. Might they have to simply rent out spaces to the highest bidder to keep things going? Have they been doing that already?

The Roundabout is in serious trouble, financially and artistically. The theater spent a ton of money fixing up Henry Miller's Theatre for "Birdie," and now it has to find a tenant for the spring to pay the bills. The Roundabout is already renting out Studio 54 to Carrie Fisher and her show "Wishful Drinking."
Which means the company is basically becoming Broadway's fourth landlord, after the Shuberts, the Nederlanders and Jujamcyn. I wonder if the nonprofit Roundabout, with its tax breaks and subsidies, can undercut its for-profit competitors on rental deals.
If I were one of the big three, I'd be asking some pretty pointed questions.

Wait, "Wishful Drinking" is not a Roundabout production? Somebody should tell their website...

Always Be Closing

2009-12-01T15:57:00.003-05:00

The Oleanna producers, who made news just two weeks ago announcing a January 3 closing, must have looked at the latest numbers and said, in a matter befitting Mr. Mamet himself: fuck it.

Producer Jeffrey Finn announced today that the first-ever Broadway production of OLEANNA, the provocative drama by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, will now complete its Broadway engagement this coming Sunday, December 6, 2009.

Just too "provocative," I guess.

Yes, that's this Sunday. As in: last 8 performances.

Roundup

2009-12-01T08:50:00.003-05:00

Theatre buzz from around the web.

-Hey actors, want a job? How about being head of Actors Equity! John Connolly has suddenly stepped down before the expiration of his term. Yes, to spend more time with his family. But also, he says, to go back to acting!

-It was on, then off, now on again: the Irish Rep's worthy "Emperor Jones" revival is indeed transferring to the Off Broadway Soho Playhouse.

-Who will star in Martin McDonagh's new American-set Broadway play, "A Behanding in Spokane"? Why, Christiopher Walken, of course. Thus further strengthening my hunch that this is merely another stepping stone in McDonagh's quest to become a hot indie filmmaker.

Coming to a Theatre Near You--Subtitles!

2009-11-30T14:39:00.000-05:00

Someone producers finally realized that if the Metropolitan Opera can have subtitles at your seats, why can't the "legit" biz? But the West End figured it out first.

The Shaftesbury Theatre in London is the first to offer the AirScript handsets. Audiences pay £6 to hire the device during a performance of its current production, Hairspray.
The script appears in real time in a choice of English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese or Chinese. The translations have been made by translators rather than translation software.

You get the genius of it? A) Theatre has dwindling audiences. B) Strongest sector of the commercial theatre audience is tourists, many of whom don't speak English.

Therefore, it surely follows: C) Rather than shut out a huge portion of the tourist market, give them theatre in their own language!

Foreign language speakers have not stayed away from either Broadway or the West End--but just have limited themselves to language-free spectacles. Like, oh, Phantom. (Or, in that case, shows they already know from home.) But these devices represent the inevitable next step in luring the tourist market--who knows, perhaps even to non-singing plays!

So expect to see it here on Broadway soon. Just don't yell at the poor foreigners for texting!

LA rising?

2009-11-30T11:34:00.004-05:00

LA critic Charles McNulty says the NY Times can laud Seattle all it wants, but he'll still take La La Land:

According to an Actors’ Equity Assn. spokesperson, there are roughly 79 theaters in Los Angeles that use one form of equity contract or another, a number that doesn’t include any big sit-down productions or the 40 or so theaters that sometimes use an Equity member or a guest artist or special appearance contract. Nor does it include the huge number of 99-seat productions each year (verging around 1,000, was the estimate).

"In Seattle,” the spokesperson continued, "there are 15 equity theaters and an additional 16 that sometimes use the special appearance or guest artist contracts."

I'll let Colburn work out the math. But since numbers aren’t always as persuasive as anecdotes, let me get personal about this: I moved to Los Angeles from New York, where I was fairly established as a theater editor, critic and professor. I love Seattle and admire the undeniable vitality of its theater scene. And I have a few friends up north, including Misha Berson, the theater critic for the Seattle Times. But in all honesty I can’t imagine I would have left my settled life in New York for a drama critic post in Seattle (though the beauty of the natural scenery would have made it awfully tempting).

Hey, the more the merrier, right?

But at least it's nice to know maybe stage actors can move out to LA for film/tv work and not have to give up worthy theatre entirely. Right? (Seriously, bicoastal actors, chime in.)

Theatre-Geek Thanksgiving Punning

2009-11-25T16:51:00.001-05:00

Good time waster this weekend: the TCG twitter-feed of proposed titles for "thanksgiving plays."

Best so far:

Yamlet.
A Sweetpotato Named Desire
Flower Drumstick Song
Much Ado About Stuffing
Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham
Basted ("Sarah Kane's controversial masterpiece")
The Ice Cream Cometh

and, of course:

God of Carnage

Pun-o-phobes be warned.

108 Productions (re)presents "Corpus Christi"

2009-11-25T11:39:00.004-05:00

In the spirit of giving thanks I'd like to share a moving comment I received the other day on a year-old post about the ongoing arguments and ignorance about the Terrence McNally play Corpus Christi. It's from the director of the LA-based revival that played New York last year and was the target of yet another preposterous--though at least quieter--hate campaign, one that used the New York Times as an enabler.

Yes, Mr. Arnzen says nice things about me, but I wish to put the spotlight on the brave efforts of his company in soldiering on with controversial work.

I make a point of trying to avoid all comments on shows I am currently working on. Or at least not taking what I see too much too heart. If you believe the good you need to believe the bad as well. So I just came across this blog. Fantastic coverage of a hateful attack on this innocent and kind hearted play. Thank you for your incredible, honest, passionate and soul filled voice. The play has not suffered and though the NYC run last fall was meant to be the grand finale of a three year run the show is actually still playing and has recently picked up more steam than ever. After playing in Orange County just below Los Angeles and receiving our first real visible protest the show has a long list of possible venues that want to bring the production to them. Aside from that list there are final details being worked out for the show to play in London, Paris, a UK tour, back to San Francisco, Acapulco and even Corpus Christi TX itself. An exciting time for us all and word like yours reaffirm how important it is we continue our journey even though to this date we have yet to be financially compensated for our hard work. The spiritual fulfillment we receive has proven to be enough for my cast and crew over the past few years and looks to continue that way for the year (or years) to come.
Keep speaking the truth,

Nic Arnzen
Director/Producer
108 Productions

Good that the production continues to have a life and continues to find an audience despite the hate- and fear-mongers. I'll give thanks to that.

(By the way, if you missed the original post--or were just, understandably, put off by its length!--may I commend it to you as one of the most thorough arguments I've made on this blog about how to fight both censorship and media ignorance about the arts. So if you're looking for some longer reading for those travel delays or as a getaway from the family dinner table this weekend, here it is.)

Roundup

2009-11-25T10:51:00.003-05:00

-Cate Blanchett arrives in New York this weekend play Blanche DuBois at BAM in a trouring production from her company in Australia. NY Mag has an interview with her and director Liv Ullmann(!)

-Everyone wants in on some summer Fringe action! Even London now, as if Edinburgh, the ur-Fringe, wasn't enough for the UK.

-In the Voice, Alexis Soloski asks the question that everyone in downtown NY wonders secretly but never says: could the legendary LaMama go on without its ageless doyenne Ellen Stewart?

-Last month I raved in Time Out about the new "Emperor Jones" revival at Irish Rep. (My first five stars!) I was regretting so few would probably get to see this terrific revival of some "unrevivable" O'Neill. But now they're lucky enough to be transferring to a longer commercial Off Broadway run, at least until the end of January.

-The movie "Me and Orson Welles"--which depicts Welles' legendary 1930s Julius Caesar staging--opens in NY and LA today, and A.O. Scott's review actually makes it sound promising! You can check out some clips and other fun stuff on the film's site.

Today's Roundup

2009-11-24T09:17:00.003-05:00

-NY Times needs a survey to tell them artists are suffering in the recession.

-London theatre's abuzz with the talk of last night's Evening Standard Awards.

-Frank Wildhorn strikes again. Bonnie & Clyde(???) opened at La Jolla. I used to do a feature here called "Bad Ideas for Musicals." Time to revive it, I think.

-What two Broadway shows averaged only 43% capacity last week? Would it surprise you that one was Superior Donuts? Or that the other was Oleanna? Of course, not. They're plays.

Best Plays 2007-2008

2009-11-23T13:53:00.005-05:00

I am proud to announce the publication of the latest in the 89-year tradition that is "The Best Plays Yearbook"--at one time known as the "Burns Mantle Best Plays," when Mr. Mantle was alive and running things. Thankfully Jeffrey Eric Jenkins has kept the tradition going strong.

And even more thankfully, he has even engaged me to write for it! For the previous edition (2006-2007) I surveyed the Off-Off Broadway season. In the new '07-'08 volume (yes, we're a little behind, sorry) I discuss the merits of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. And what better time to revisit that play than now, when the Signature Theatre's marathon of his epic cycle is getting underway to wide acclaim and when a full biography of the writer has just been published.

Here's a teaser from my intro:

Horton Foote may have written Dividing the Estate in 1989, but by the time it finally opened in New York eighteen years later, it could not have seemed more current. The day the New York Times ran a rave review of the Primary Stages production, the paper also reported that home prices had just experienced “the steepest monthly price drop since December 1970.” By year’s end home foreclosures were to rise more than 75 percent over 2006 rates and housing sales plummet 25 percent. The subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 was well underway and Foote’s play about a Texas family’s overdependence on their overvalued property found its moment....

For the rest, buy the book! Amazon is offering it at nearly $20 off the list price. (See Amazon box to the right.)

Act now and you'll also get in the very same volume essays by Jeffrey Sweet on Adding Machine; Chicago's Chris Jones on August:Osage County; Celia Wren on Sarah Ruhl's eurydice;
David Cote on The Receptionist; Charles McNulty on The Seafarer; and Dan Bacalzo on Yellow Face.

Today's Roundup

2009-11-23T10:15:00.004-05:00

Notable news and interesting reading from around the web.

-Make more money from a flop than a hit? Okay, not more, but Variety says don't count out B'way underperformers like Shrek on the road--even if it takes the Bus & Truck circuit.

-LA Times' Charles McNulty uses the Lee Strasberg Institute's 40th birthday to reflect upon the history and legacy of "the method."

-Parabasis mourns the loss of another recession casualty, DC's Catalyst Theatre.

-Need more Schiller in your life? Ach, ja! Check out the biographies and films commemorating his 250th.

-Do Americans not get farce? SF critic Chloe Veltman ponders.

-And finally, the folks at Womens Project have asked me to spread the word that their Lab program will survive their recent grant-loss, and that the deadline is coming up soon. Applicants welcome.

Today's Roundup

2009-11-20T11:16:00.002-05:00

-In today's Times, Ben Brantley goes gaga for Part I of the Horton Foote "Orphan's Home" marathon, and the "Escapes" Travel section of all places discovers that Seattle actually has some theatre!

-Did a play ever change your life? Well maybe you can win a prize from the American Theatre Wing for telling them about it in 350 words or less. You have until November 29 to enter their contest.

-Remember Paul Simon's "Capeman" musical? Can you believe it may be revived...at the Public?

-If you liked yesterday's trailer for the Orson Welles Julius Caesar movie, here's an interview with director Richard Linklater.

Theatre News Roundup

2009-11-19T11:43:00.000-05:00

-The Shuberts are taking on a bigger creative say in what goes into their 17 Broadway houses, by teaming up with the Steady Rain producers. Call it insurance?

-The Voice smartly sends their music guy to go to Fela! and tell us all we need to know about the Nigerian Afrobeat superstar and whether a Broadway musical about him has any chance.

-Willem Dafoe tries to explain Richard Foreman to the NPR set. (Via Upstaged.)

-Also via Upstaged, another interview: Alan Ayckbourn, who gives yet another endorsement to, of all things, the 59E59 theaters! (It’s the sort of theater I recognize and am happy with. I would be far less happy a few blocks down in a big Broadway theater.)

-Would you believe there's a major holiday movie release about...Orson Welles' 1937 fascist staging of Julius Caesar? I'm often suspect of Hollywood movies about the theatre (not to mention those including Zak Efron), but Richard Linklater is a good director and the trailer looks pretty alright. Worth it alone for the apparently accurate recreations of the production itself.

The natural bookend I say to Tim Robbins' film about Welles' other 1937 project, The Cradle Will Rock.

Not a bad year for a 22-year-old director, eh?

"The Late Christopher Bean"

2009-11-19T09:37:00.002-05:00

In this week's Time Out I review the seldom revived 1932 Sidney Howard comedy The Late Christopher Bean. Not bad.

Happy to discover the play. Should be done more, especially by schools (i.e. a play from the 30s with roles for women!). I'm surprised other reviews haven't pointed out the clear Van Gogh parallel, which must have been the whole point of the original French farce Howard adapted. Any René Fauchois experts out there...?

Sayonara Oleanna

2009-11-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

The Broadway Oleanna has posted a January 3 closing notice. Despite a movie-star cast of its own (Julia Styles and Bill Pullman), it has not lived up to Steady Rain standards for star-driven, two-character 90 minute plays. Last week, it did only 65% capacity, barely more than Brighton Beach when that closed. According to Playbill: "As of the January close date, Oleanna will have played 15 previews and 97 performances."

Maybe the closing notice is a ploy to boost sales. Personally I blame the ad campaign's tag line for being too prophetic: "Whatever Side You Take, You're Wrong!"

Riedel offers his take today, focusing on the backstage bickering over those "Take A Side" talkbacks:

I don't think the talk-backs sold many tickets. But since the show ran just 80 minutes, they were a way of making the evening seem less chintzy. "They definitely added value," says a production source.
Alas, Mamet hated them. He never attended one, but he's against them on principle, believing that his play should stand on its own and not be picked apart by "experts" on the law, feminism and campus sexual harassment policies."The talk-backs added a lot to the show," an investor says, "but we were told by David's agent right after we opened that he didn't like them."
Mamet couldn't stop them. Writers control only the script, not what happens onstage after the final bow. But he had a trump card to play. When the show opened to mixed reviews, the producers had to cut expenses and asked Mamet to waive his royalties. His price? No more talk-backs. Production members are bitter that Mamet nixed something they believed was helping the show.
"This is a play that's supposed to generate controversy, and the audience wanted to talk about it," a source says. "Mamet was basically saying 'F - - - you' to his own audience. We'll never know if the talk-backs could have become a selling point because he shut them down so quickly." (They ended right after the show opened.)

That's right, without a stupid contrived talkback panel of random "experts" the audience will never talk about the play.

I say, good for Mamet. The whole tone of the talkbacks, as advertised, demeaned as not just a civics lesson (which it clearly, uh, isn't) but a cheap tabloid style civics lesson at that.

Maybe the talkbacks turned people off--people who care about serious theatre that is. Maybe some who would be interested in seeing a decent production of an interesting Mamet play were not interested in going to a Montel (actual panelist) Williams show with dramatic prologue.

Anyway...What did I think of the show?

Like Brantley I too had trouble getting the terrific 1992 William Macy Off-Broadway premiere out of my head. And Mamet's original minimalist staging--on a bare-bones, almost black-box set in the pre-Stomp Orpheum Theatre downtown--enhanced the play's intensity much more than the bloated version that had to be expanded onto the John Golden stage. (Neil Patel's a good designer, but too bad he was required to build a cavernous faculty office for this struggling, not- yet-tenured professor that was fit for a Provost!)

But putting those memories aside, I still appreciated, even if I didn't prefer, Bill Pullman's far more genial protrayal. Pullman can't not be likeable, I've decided. A fine stage actor who's made a specialty of sexually-beleaguered Albee men lately, he gave the character layers of almost nebbishy self-doubt that the script otherwise would not suggest. Which unfortunately has a deleterious effect on the play, especially when the other character, the troubled female student, is played by an actress less talented and even less likeable: Julia Styles. I won't deny that Oleanna may be a sexist play. But at least with the original cast, the professor came off as a tragically arrogant pedant and the student a perhaps misguided yet justifiably motivated complainant. In this production, I get the feeling most of the audience is wondering what that cold little fembot could possibly have against such a charming mensch as Bill Pullman!

Maybe that's what kept people away.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-18T09:31:00.001-05:00

"I've never seen a play."

-Lance Armstrong, as quoted in Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy

Did NEA Screw Women's Project?

2009-11-17T15:24:00.002-05:00

Time Out's Helen Shaw reports. Interesting comments discussion, too.

I don't know the particulars. It's sad to see any company lose a grant. But it's a clear sign that theatre co's should not expect support on demand even from Rocco Landesman.

By the way, I can't help noticing the size of the unrenewed WP grant was $20,000. And on this same day we learn of the awarding of a $25,000 "Wendy Wasserstein Prize" by the private Education Foundation of America to a young Chicago writer, Marisa Wegrzyn. The Prize money is set aside annually for, "an outstanding script by a young woman who has not yet received national attention."

One of course does not cancel out the other in the big picture. But does it signal a shift away from institutional support to celebrating individuals?

Theatre News Roundup

2009-11-17T09:33:00.002-05:00

-Actors Theatre of Louisville announces the new batch of "anointed" new plays for the 2010 Humana Fest

-Fela's strategy for weathering Broadway with no star? Star producers! And their cash.

-David Cote says some of the best theatre in New York right now is happening at New York City Opera

-Tony Kushner gets...another prize!

-Elizabeth Vincentelli on Marsha Norman on how women playwrights are really faring these days.

Neil Simon or Norman Rockwell?

2009-11-16T13:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry to harp on the Brighton Beach fiasco, but at least I'm not the only one.

Variety's David Rooney has an even more cutting critique of the marketing campaign:

The ad campaign clearly wasn't connecting with ticketbuyers.
But the tone, more than the profile of the ads, was problematic. The artwork was built around a pastel-colored, faux-Norman Rockwell rendering of the playwright's alter-ego, Eugene, as an adolescent and a young adult, leaning against a street sign bearing the plays' two titles. One-liners lifted from the text ran above this, all of them resoundingly unfunny out of context.
The ads suggested a sitcom that was dated, trite and artificial. A second wave of ads showed a sepia-toned, posed family photograph of the cast, topped by the tagline: "If you think your family is funny, wait until you meet ours." Oy. Even the post-opening ads emblazoned with enthusiastic critical endorsements, of which there were many, stuck to timid colors and wishy-washy fonts.
The 1983 "Brighton" is generally recalled as a work of light-hearted nostalgia, but not of any great substance. That was precisely the perception David Cromer's textured production was playing against. The production subtly coaxed the laughs out of the melancholy reality of a Depression-era Brooklyn family struggling to get by and stay together.
But the ads featured no strong images and no real indication that the production explored new emotional depths.
Admittedly, it's tough to convey tonal complexity in a marketing campaign, and the best Broadway advertising tends to be built around the simple, straightforward message of bold, iconic images like the whispering "Wicked" witches, the reverse shot of the sleek-suited "Jersey Boys," the mask and blood-red rose of "The Phantom of the Opera" or the stylized leonine head of "The Lion King."

Any suggestions, armchair marketers out there, for alternative artwork approaches?

Tony n' Tina's Arbitration

2009-11-16T10:21:00.002-05:00

Ever wonder how Tony n' Tina's Wedding can run so long?

A labor dispute centered on long-running Off Broadway tuner "Tony n' Tina's Wedding" is heating up, with musicians union Local 802 claiming that the show's new producers did not come to the negotiating table at a meeting skedded for Monday afternoon.
Kim Ricciardi,who produces the Gotham outpost of "Tony" with her husband, Sonny, responded by saying that such a meeting had never been set. The Ricciardis took over last month as producers of the tuner, which has been running Off Broadway since 1988. Production currently plays one night per week in the basement of the midtown restaurant Sophia's.
The union contends the producers locked out the musicians beginning with the Oct. 17 performance, replacing them with recorded music.

Are the Tony n' Tina's actors even unionized?

Azenberg Speaks

2009-11-13T10:39:00.003-05:00

Last weekend's NY1 "On Stage" program (local cable TV for you non-New Yorkers) got Brighton Beach producer Manny Azenberg to sit down for what seems like his only post-debacle interview. Unfortunately, it's not archived on their site, but here's a transcript of the highlights.

We got a hint early on. We sold no groups, no theatre parties. There was no interest. And then you assume that the word of mouth will improve it, it didn’t. Then you assume that the reviews will improve it, and the reviews by and large were kind of wonderful—better certainly than what we did originally.

And nothing happened. The numbers were so appalling that…last Friday [October 30], the accountant and the manager came into the office and said, “Manny, you have to close this.”

There used to be an audience that just went to the theatre, and the word of mouth would achieve that audience. You didn’t have to get a good notice in the Times either, because Brighton Beach didn’t get a good notice in the Times originally. That audience doesn’t seem to be there [today]. There probably are many reasons why—some sociological, and some economic, tickets are expensive. I think the audience is still there in the subscription at Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Roundabout. But that’s an audience that has grey hair. I’m not sure we’ve nurtured subsequent generations.

[Asked what he would have done differently]

I wouldn’t have done anything differently because I was educated in the old theatre. This is what you did. I was really proud of what was on that stage. […]

[But] the commercial answer to your question is: you need a star. I think it’s apparent that you can’t do a revival today without a star. If you have to use a star, then everything changes. Then you only run for 3 months, and it affects the other economics as well.

Amidst everything else, that bit about the theatre parties and group sales not coming through is indeed surprising, and makes me wonder what's up with that part of the biz these days.

Also note that Azenberg basically identifies the current subscriber base of the Big 3 nonprofits as the same people who used to make up the middlebrow NYC-area Broadway audience of yore.

And people ask why our big subsidized theatres aren't more adventurous?

On the same program, by the way, actor Josh Grisetti confirms that Broadway Bound (the sequel, in which he was to play the older Eugene) was just about to go into Tech rehearsals. Meaning it had basically been fully rehearsed by the actors.

If the earlier anonymous comment here about the backstage story is true, it would be a shame if the cast and director David Cromer are no longer on good terms, since I was hoping some other theatre (a nonprofit) might be able take up the Broadway Bound at some later date, considering how ready it was. Be nice for all that work not to have gone to waste.

Not Even Spidey Can Conquer Today's Broadway

2009-11-12T14:03:00.003-05:00

Not too long ago $52 million was considered a fairly high budget for a movie. But a Broadway show???

Yes, it's true. And don't assume that the Julie Taymor/U2 "Spider-Man" musical is too big to fail.

LA Times' John Horn breaks through the wall of silence and shows just how serious the obstacles are at this point.

Despite all the talent in its corner, it's still far from certain when -- or even if -- the elaborate musical will open after six years of development, as it has struggled to find a backer to close the budget shortfall. If the show doesn't premiere by the end of April, it not only will miss Tony Award eligibility but also face the expiration of the musical's license from Marvel Entertainment, whose comic-book division created the enduring superhero in 1962. Bono and Edge seem bewildered by the show's odyssey. "But who cares?" Bono said. "The visuals and the music are amazing, and that's what will matter."

While many factors have contributed to the show's holdup, the musical has been derailed by some of the most complicated staging in Broadway history, as the show's creators try to replicate the superhero's skyscraper-swinging movie maneuvers inside a theater.

Three people close to the production say the musical needs to raise as much as $24 million to cover its proposed budget of about $52 million -- $42 million for the show, $6 million for theater renovations and $4 million for theater restorations. At the same time, "Spider-Man's" fixed weekly running costs total around $1 million -- hundreds of thousands dollars more than what some elaborate shows such as "Mary Poppins" or "West Side Story" cost to stage every week. Part of "Spider-Man's" expense stems from its aerial and scenic effects: More than 40 stage hands are needed to operate the musical's backstage rigging, said a person who's seen the show's budget.

Those expenses mean "Spider-Man" would have to sell out every show for as many as four years (a feat only a handful of Broadway shows ever manage) simply to break even, according to several people familiar with the production and its finances.

And we can only assume that means four years of sold out houses at very high prices.

Hey if this is where Julie Taymor wants to put her attention these days, fine. (Thankfully she's also coming out with a Tempest film.) But I just wish she lavished all this genius on something other than...Spiderman.