The Week: Most Recent broadway

Spider-Man's surprise Broadway success: By the numbers

The Week — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:26:00 -0500

There may really be no such thing as bad publicity. Despite a litany of negative headlines, damning reviews, late-night ridicule, and a rocky financial start, Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark just set a new box office record. The maligned musical's big haul comes just in time for the one-year anniversary of the show's first performance, a disastrous preview on Nov. 28, 2010. It's an unlikely milestone for the musical, which seemed destined to go down as one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. Here's a look at the surprise success, by the numbers:

$2.07 million
Spider-Man...

Broadway's revamped Spider-Man: Still a 'bloated' mess?

The Week — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:36:00 -0400

After a record-breaking 183 preview performances and a string of cast injuries, Broadway's favorite punchline, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, finally opened officially Tuesday. When critics famously ridiculed the $75 million musical during February previews, ranking it "among the worst" productions of all time, producers shuttered the show for three weeks of creative retooling before recommencing previews. Maligned director Julie Taymor has been replaced, U2's Bono and the Edge have written new songs, and the plot has been significantly reworked. Have the changes paid off? (Watch a PBS...

SNL's fake law firm for 'Spider-Man' injuries

The Week — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:47:00 -0500

The video: The indignities never stop for Broadway's most troubled musical, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." Last week, the show received a critical drubbing and was slapped with two safety violations. Then "Saturday Night Live" piled on with a satirical commercial for a fictional law firm representing audience members who've sustained injuries while watching the accident-prone production. In the ad, Fred Armisen plays a personal injury lawyer for the firm "Gublin and Green," (a riff on the name of Spider-Man's Green Goblin villain), who urges audience members to sue if they were injured, hated...

'Spider-Man' musical: Worst Broadway show ever?

The Week — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:34:00 -0500

Critics have finally weighed in on Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the disaster-prone $65 million superhero musical — and the results aren't pretty. The New York Times' esteemed reviewer Ben Brantley was just one of many critics to give Julie Taymor's show an emphatic thumbs down. Only Glenn Beck has offered an unqualified good review. Theater critics ordinarily don't review a show until opening night — but decided to contravene their own rule in dismay at the show's seemingly endless run of preview performances (It officially opens on March 15). Here's what they had to say:

Broadway...

Glenn Beck endorses... Broadway's 'Spider-Man'

The Week — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:48:00 -0500

The video: Though the opening of Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark has been pushed back, for a fifth time, to March 15, the troubled, accident-prone Broadway musical boasts at least one influential fan: Conservative icon Glenn Beck. On Thursday's edition of his radio show, the polarizing host boisterously defended the $65 million show, comparing it favorably to the smash hit Wicked, and urging Americans to "give a kidney," if necessary, to secure a ticket. Once Spider-Man opens, Beck warned, "you will not be able to get tickets" for a year. He blamed snobbery for the show's poor press, affecting...

The latest tweets on 'Spider-Man: The musical'

The Week — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:41:00 -0500

Could the musical Spider-Man be the 'biggest disaster in Broadway history'?

The Week — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:55:00 -0500

Three weeks ago, Broadway's troubled production of "Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark" suffered its most serious setback yet when stuntman Christopher Tierney fell "20 to 30 feet" to the stage during a preview performance, suffering a skull fracture and cracked vertebrae. Since then, actress Natalie Mendoza, who plays the newly invented character Arachne — and who had also been injured on set at one point — quit the show altogether. And this week, The New Yorker poked fun at the injury-plagued production with a cover featuring "a hospital wing populated by convalescing Spideys." Yet...

Will 'Spider-Man' be Broadway's biggest flop?

The Week — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 18:38:00 -0500

With its record-breaking $65 million budget, numerous production delays, and A-list collaborators (U2's Bono and the Edge wrote the score), Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has been an object of fascination for months. Although sneak previews finally began on Sunday evening, the first performance was marred by technical difficulties that repeatedly brought the show to an embarrassing halt. Is it too soon to write Spider-Man off? (Watch a CBS report about the Spider-Man musical)

No. It's a disaster: The show's debut was an "epic flop" that "dragged on for nearly 3½ hours," says Michael...