Quote of the Day

"For a major critic to review a Broadway musical, or play for that matter, after only the twentieth preview, is disappointing and uncalled for."

-Spider-Man press agent Rick Miramontez

Only the 20th preview???

Oh, What a Tangled Web

"To him, life is a great big bang up
Whenever there's a hang up
You'll find the Spider man." 

-theme song to 1960s animated Spiderman TV show

The actual plunging of a Spider-Man actor into the orchestra pit after his, um, magical powers failed to save him from a dodgy harnessing method has catapulted the show's offstage drama into even greater tsuris, if that were even possible.

This latest accident has now triggered more organized concern and even protest from the acting community, both through union reps and, now, politicians coming to the defense of "workplace safety."  Crain's reports:

Assemblyman Rory Lancman, chairman of the Assembly Subcommittee on Workplace Safety, staged a press conference Thursday at Foxwoods Theater, where two performances of the show were canceled Wednesday in light of the accident. Mr. Lancman said the code of necessary safety conditions for theater productions may no longer be relevant for such technically complicated shows as Spider-Man, which has 38 aerial maneuvers that involve actors being hoisted into harnesses and flying through the air. “The current legislation that governs these kinds of performances dates back to 1953 and has not been materially updated since then,” Mr. Lancman said. 

Less politic are the online outbursts of various show people, named and unnamed:

Many actors voiced their displeasure on social media, including Adam Pascal from RENT, who wrote on Facebook: "They should put Julie Taymor in jail for assault!” On Twitter, Tony-winning actress Alice Ripley posted "Does someone have to die? Where is the line for the decision makers, I am curious"....And BroadwayWorld.com quoted an anonymous “theatrical insider” at length railing against the effects of the show, saying “It's made me angry that this level of technology and that people's safety being at risk is being allowed. Someone needs to STOP Julie Taymor NOW!”

While such accusations are not pretty, I would still advise Taymor's lawyer not to take the asshole approach:

Seth Gelblum, a partner at Loeb & Loeb, and the attorney for Julie Taymor and a number of the production's investors, said actors get hurt in the theater all the time. For example, Fela! was forced to cancel a performance last year when three dancers couldn't perform because of injuries.Mr. Gelblum said the incidents are receiving outsized attention because the musical didn't work out the kinks in an out of town run, but is doing so on Broadway under the scrutiny of the New York media. “Broadway musicals are very strenuous and people always get hurt unfortunately,” Mr. Gelblum said. “But everything is magnified on this show because of the unprecedented attention.”

Of course. It's the internet and Michael Riedel that gave Christopher Tierney "a hairline fracture in his skull, a broken scapula, a broken bone close to his elbow, four broken ribs, a bruised lung and three fractured vertebrae." And actors wind up in "serious condition" at Bellevue from strained jazz-hands all the time!

Stage Directions has a very helpful rundown of all the backstage technical issues involved, as well as a roundup of industry reactions.

Meanwhile...

When I posted a while back about my surprise at the NY Times' reporting on the show's first preview, I was actually not, as some of my bloggy friends assumed, condemning the paper.  I just wanted to be sure everyone took note of what may be a "rubicon" moment in the whole etiquette of press reviewing.  It may well be that in the age of the internet, it makes no sense for a critic to hold his peace while everyone else in the world is holding forth online 24/7.  At least, that's what a couple of bigtime critics have decided...

In articles that ran over the holiday weekend, Linda Winer of Newsday and Jeremy Gerard of Bloomberg News both wrote about their recent experiences at “Spider-Man,” which is scheduled to open at the Foxwoods Theater on Feb. 7. Both Ms. Winer and Mr. Gerard acknowledge that under typical circumstances, it is customary for a theater critic to see a show in the days just before it opens, when the production presumably will not undergo major changes, and to publish the review after the show opens. They both also make the case that the lengthy preview period for “Spider-Man,” not to mention its $65 million price tag, do not necessarily constitute typical circumstances.

[...]

Mr. Gerard said Monday morning in a telephone interview that his review was “an interim report” and that he intended to revisit “Spider-Man” for its official critics’ previews in February. That said, Mr. Gerard added, “Critics should be part of the conversation, ultimately. We don’t serve the producers, we serve our readers, and I thought that it looked stranger and stranger, and my editor agreed with me.”

(Since no one actually reads Bloomberg or Newsday for theatre coverage, this is all from the Times, of course.)

This is notable because Gerard and Winer are no gossip-mongers. They are two of the most oldschool reputable critics around.  And Gerard has a point there, I think, about the "stranger and stranger."  It's the same question that increasingly faces all "traditional media" outlets today. Does it make sense to let the old journalistic practices keep you from talking about the thing that everyone else is talking about.  (Everyone in a particular field, at least.)

One could argue maybe that's best left to beat reporters and not critics--as with the Times sending Patrick Healy, not Ben Brantley to Spidey's first preview.  But then again: isn't your critic the writer on your staff best qualified to report on performance?  As Winer is quoted as saying, "There’s something a little nuts that critics are now the only interested parties who can’t see the bride before the wedding."

There's also the question of how long a show can reasonably keep the critics waiting.  This all might not be happening if Spider-Man had a normal two-week preview process and opened on schedule.  Instead the opening has been repeatedly delayed and now has been pushed back to February 7.  As Bloomberg culture editor Manuela Hoelterhoff  puts it to the Times, "“I worried that by the time the show opened, I might be in a rest home with [Gerard]."  Asked to comment, the Times' own culture editor makes the valid point that all this time the show's producers are pleading a grace period, they "are raking in the cash, charging some people more than $200 a ticket," adding that while the Paper of Record won't break the embargo, "We’ll wait, but not forever."

Finally, the Times also has someone's 8-second cellphone video of the notorious accident.  But here's a more accurate filmed record:

Theatre Flicks

Here's a nice holiday time-waster, or even a shopping list!  Howard Sherman's lists of notable (if not always good) movies about the theatre: one for features, one for documentaries.

Titles I wholeheartedly second are: Looking for Richard, Topsy Turvy, Me and Orson Welles, The Libertine, The Cradle Will Rock, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Dresser, The Bandwagon, All That Jazz, and, yes, even Hamlet 2 (or at least the first half of it).

Your picks?

The Only "Christmas Carol" I Would Sit Through

Yes, the Klingon version.

(sorry about the opening ad)





Now this is what supertitles are for!

No, this is not High School Theatre

Patrick Healy has the awesome job of recounting the backstage shenanigans of the already ill-advised commercial Off Broadway revival of that creaky old Dracula play from the 20s. (The play that was the basis of the 1931 Bela Lugosi film--and hence the reason that movie bears no resemblance to the novel.)

Basically the lead actress, Thora Birch (of American Beauty and Ghost World) was fired due to no fault of her own, other than the bad luck of having the most insane stage-father ever.

This online update of the story gives even more, um, colorful detail than the print edition:

[Birch] was playing the central female character, Lucy Seward, the love interest of Count Dracula. [Director Paul] Alexander said that Ms. Birch was fired because her father, Jack, had threatened another actor during a rehearsal on Thursday night. Mr. Birch, in an interview, denied making any threat.

Mr. Birch, formerly an actor in pornographic films...

Yes, you read that right.  But there's more.

Mr. Birch, formerly an actor in pornographic films who is now Ms. Birch’s manager, had attended most rehearsals to provide support and guidance for his daughter. At one point during Thursday’s rehearsal,  Mr. Birch confronted an actor who had been working on a scene with Ms. Birch. [...] Mr. Birch asked the actor why he was rubbing Ms. Birch’s back during the scene. The actor – whom none of the sides would name – said that he had been directed to do so as part of the scene. Mr. Birch objected, saying that the back rub was unnecessary, and told the actor to stop. (It is unusual for anyone other than a production’s director to instruct an actor.)

[...]
 Mr. Birch had been a frequent presence at “Dracula” rehearsals. Ms. Birch’s contract had called for her to have a bodyguard, and Mr. Birch said that he was serving that role because “Thora had had some stalking issues in the past.” But he and Ms. Birch also said he had been on hand to offer support and advice to Ms. Birch and confer with her about upcoming projects, including a film that Ms. Birch said her father was co-producing. “My dad is my support, and he is the best support that I could ever have,” Ms. Birch said.

I'll refrain from commenting on that eerie sounding daddy-daughter "film" project.  Only because you can't make up something funnier than this next bit:

At another point during Thursday’s rehearsal, Mr. Alexander said he noticed Mr. Birch peering through a window that was part of a library set while a scene with Ms. Birch was underway. “I couldn’t believe my eyes and turned to a crew member and said, ‘Is that Jack Birch looking through the window at Thora?’ ”

Mr. Birch said that he had been backstage at that moment examining  “a loose, very wobbly platform that Thora and others had to walk across.”

Mr. Birch and Ms. Birch said that he had been her manager for years. Mr. Birch and Ms. Birch’s mother, Carol Connors, were stars in pornographic films in the 1970s.  Ms. Connors is best known for “Deep Throat.”  Mr. Birch has been on film sets with Ms. Birch before; a gossip column in The New York Post reported in 2007 that he had been present during Ms. Birch’s taping of a sex scene for her movie “The Winter of Frozen Dreams.”

Always nice to see the child go into the family business, eh?  (And how about that "How I Met Your Mother" story!)

And now for the coda...

Ms. Birch has been replaced by her understudy, Emily Bridges, whose father is the actor Beau Bridges; Ms. Bridges’s role will be played by Katharine Luckinbill, whose parents are the actors Laurence Luckinbill and Lucie Arnaz.

Well I'm sure these parents will behave themselves.  After all, what diva-rights do they have. They weren't in Deep Throat!

The New Provincetown Playhouse

Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times                                          

NYU has unveiled their renovated Provincetown Playhouse, part of a new Law School building complex that almost destroyed the legendary downtown theatre.

From this angle at least, kinda looks the same to me, no?  Still, the controversy continues.

Quote of the Day

"Being here with tonight’s honorees, reflecting on their contributions, I’m reminded of a Supreme Court opinion by the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In a case argued before the Court in 1926, the majority ruled that the state of New York couldn’t regulate the price of theater tickets, because, in the opinion of the majority, the theater was not a public necessity. They argued, in effect, that the experience of attending the theater was superfluous. And this is what Justice Holmes had to say: 'To many people the superfluous is necessary.'

The theater is necessary. Dance is necessary. Song is necessary. The arts are necessary -- they are a necessary part of our lives."

-President Barack Obama, saluting this year's Kennedy Center Honorees.

John Simon Fired by a Website

After being bumped from his longtime perch at New York Magazine five years ago, that critic you love to hate, John Simon, now can't even hold down his cushy sinecure at Bloomberg.com.  (Where the expenses of keeping him surely can't be much damage to the conglomerate.)

But the old man ain't going away yet.  Behold JohnSimon-Uncensored.com!

Like a giant tortoise from its shell, I am re-emerging on this web site. Here I will continue, freer and more independent than ever, to dispense my opinions, critiques and enthusiasms about our arts and culture. I hope to be as interdisciplinary as all get-out and separate with might and main what might remain from what must go.

Well I guess the internet won't suffer from yet another angry old white guy.

Welcome to the blogosphere, John!  And in the eternal spirit of your "independent reviews" let me say that I wish your site better "legs" than what you're showing us on that profile pic!

"So What Have I Seen You In?"

Another gem made possible by the self-animation Xtranormal site.  Here, an obviously experienced fellow named "InsaneActor" offers a cartoon sketch of "the conversation you've had with every member of your family."

My favorite: "You should go do Phantom!"

Oh, our poor, naive relatives... And the folks we meet at parties.

(In case you've never seen an Xtranormal video before, don't read too much into the bears. It's just the basic character lineup for this DIY animation kit.)

Closings

The past week has brought an onslaught of Broadway closings and closing announcements for shows that aimed for more than the usual entertainment:

A Life in the Theatre--closed November 28
Elling--closed November 28

Scottsboro Boys--closing announced for December 12
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson--closing announced for January 2

Meanwhile, despite what you'd think was pretty bad publicity this week, Spider-Man just sold over a million bucks in advance sales!

NYT goes all "All That Chat" on Spidey

Expect to hear more about Patrick Healy's NY Times article covering last night's first preview of Spider-Man. (Posted online now, but not in today's print edition. Will it run? and, in print, on page A21 of the Metro section--probably because it's one of the last sections to go to press.)  Read it, and tell me if you don't think it comes awfully close to breaking the Preview Taboo that the respectable press is supposed to observe.

Still, no denying it's an irresistible read, reminiscent of really oldschool journalism--like The Tatler.

All $65 million of the new Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” took flight on Sunday night at its first preview performance, but not without bumps. The show stopped five times, mostly to fix technical problems, and Act I ended prematurely, with Spider-Man stuck dangling 10 feet above audience members, while Act II was marred by a nasty catcall during one of the midperformance pauses....The fourth and final pause at the end of Act I was the worst glitch of the night by far. Spider-Man had just flown and landed onstage with the musical’s heroine, Mary Jane Watson (played by Jennifer Damiano), in his arms. He was then supposed to zoom off toward the balcony seating area, a few hundred feet away. Instead, a harness and cables lifted Spider-Man several yards up and over the audience, then stopped. A production stage manager, C. Randall White, called for a halt to the show over the sound system, apparently in hopes of fixing and re-doing the stunt. Crew members, standing on the stage, spent 45 seconds trying to grab Spider-Man by the foot, as the audience laughed and oohed. When they finally caught him, Mr. White announced intermission, and the house lights came on. 

Some Act One curtain!

So as much I enjoy this, I do think the Times should answer to the charge of "reviewing" previews, even if they're technically not.  This is especially important at a time when "The Internet" and "Bloggers" are constantly blamed for ruining the practice of criticism by doing such things.

The truth is, what you see here is a blatant move by the Times to get in on the action. The action of All That Chat, specifically.  Notice how they have their gossipy story online already, probably just a few hours after the firstSpidey chatroom post. No doubt the Times also assumed that Riedel would have a story in the Post--and he does.

The Times has certainly done stories about "troubled" productions in previews before.  But that's always been after there were a series of troubled previews to report about, and days/weeks of buzz.  In this case, Healy clearly went to the show himself last night with the express intention of writing about it.  And while he doesn't express an "opinion" or critical judgment about the show being good or bad...um, he sure doesn't make last night sound like a good night of theatre.  And he quotes several audience members for their responses--a virtual "chat room" of opinions, as it were.

I don't know if I'm really outraged or not at this point, frankly.  But with moves like this I do think it's time for major print media to finally get off it's high horse about what was once known as critical "ethics," especially when criticizing (so sue me) bloggers or anyone who writes online.

In other words...welcome to the club, Grey Lady!

Photo/Video of the Day

In case you need 5 minutes away from your family...

Presenting the new Royal Shakespeare Company mainstage in Stratford Upon Avon.  After over three years' renovation, the space is no longer a proscenium but a "1,040-seat thrust-stage theater that will bring audiences closer to the actors."

Some behind the scenes video here.

See you Monday!

The Logic of Censorship

John Heilpern reminds us what life in the British theatre was like under the censorious rule of the Lord Chamberlain's Office:

The Gilbert and Sullivan madhouse of the Lord Chamberlain's office within St. James's Palace was mostly comprised of lordly aristocrats and showbiz-inclined army colonels who'd been censoring any play that was remotely sexual since the Theatres Act of 1737. Homosexuality frightened the horses most. Thus, the lordly Lord Chamberlain could rule that in Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer, the cannibalism was OK, but not the implication that the cannibalized man could be gay.

And this was the law of the land until the 1960s!

All this by way of profiling the rediscovered early John Osborne play, Personal Enemy, which also fell victim to this regime.

Good book on the history of the Lord Chamberlain's office, and the damage it did, here.

Day Jobs for the 21st Century

Forget waiting tables. I got one word for you about the actor's day job of the future.

Bedbugs.

Ever since the city began suffering from a widespread infestation of the pernicious bugs last year, demand has soared for people to get rid of them. Actors, it turns out, make the perfect bug busters.

"Actors have great personalities and follow directions well," says Janet Friedman, owner of Bed Bug Busters NY, who employs many people from the theater world to clean up the vermin. She favors entertainers, she says, because they can improvise, work quickly and are used to the drama of a stressful situation. 

There's a joke somewhere here about agents, but I'll spare you...

Actually, the piece surveys the overall trends and changes in how New York actors make their real living in this day and age:

To be sure, bedbug hunting is not the main alternative career for New York's unemployed actors. Some are tour-bus guides, and others are seasonal greeters at Tiffany & Co., according to the Actors Fund Work Program, a New York-based nonprofit that helps entertainment industry professionals land supplemental gigs.This summer, some actors worked for the Census Bureau, and some posed as would-be renters or buyers for the nonprofit Fair Housing Justice Center, to ensure that federal, state and local laws are followed. The most common jobs for struggling entertainers in New York remain temporary administrative work, catering and waiting tables. But "because of the economy, catering and waiter work has been way down," says Kathy Schrier, director of the Actors Fund Work Program.

Any other suggestions (or crazy anecdotes) about good jobs for actors?  Or bad ones?

Photo of the Day

 photo: Marcus Yam

Mark Rylance warms up with the cast of La Bête before curtain.

Yes, that's David Hyde-Pierce and Joanna Lumley on the right.

Nobody Good Enough for the Wasserstein Award?

Hardcore playwrights out there might already have spent all weekend following the ruckus going on over the Wendy Wasserstein Prize--meant for an emerging female dramatist under 32 years old. And by emerging they mean truly not emergent yet--no previous NYC productions beyond 199-seaters, or on regional mainstages, and no prior previous national media exposure or tv/film success.

The committee basically was going to pass on awarding anyone this year claiming no acceptable entry met the requirements. Apparently all the good young female playwrights are already working!

This led to a playwright's angry blogpost, a petition, and now an apparent reconsideration.  Time Out's Adam Feldman unpacks it all.

Personally, I feel most sympathetic to the argument that if someone sets aside $25,000 every year for a playwright, then the profession is better served by someone getting that money, as opposed to it just sitting there.

Tonys at the Beacon

So it looks like the Tony Awards have had second thoughts about relocating to Harlem?

Although it's nowhere mentioned in this NY Times story, the first announcement after the awards show got bumped from Radio City Music Hall (for Cirque du Soleil, no less) was the old United Palace Theatre at Broadway and 175th St. But now:

On Wednesday, the American Theater Wing, which presents the Tony Awards with the Broadway League, announced that the ceremony will be housed at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side. Though it’s far from the theater district, it is actually on Broadway. (Radio City is on Sixth Avenue.) However, the art deco Beacon has roughly 2,900 seats, less than half as many as the bigger hall.That is bound to create some keen competition for seats to the June 12, 2011 ceremony among the increasing number of investors and producers it takes to finance a Broadway show. 

Note that the United Palace has a 3,293 seat capacity. But did I mention, it's in Harlem?

Seattle Theatre Rumblings

Leadership shakeups and talk of mergers are what's being whispered about in the Seattle theatre scene.

Backstage at Seattle's major three theaters there have been many discussions about merger, collaboration, or other cost-saving steps. At one point, the Rep and Intiman talked about combining, with [Bartlett] Sher as the artistic director of the merged entity's three stages. Sher was not interested, having outgrown Seattle, and because the Rep has so many seats to fill that it makes it harder for an experimental director like Sher to spread his wings with risky productions. (Intiman, with a small house and a very large stage, is far better for him.) ACT had lengthy, ultimately abortive discussions with Seattle Theater Group (Paramount and the Moore) whereby the latter would take over one of the two ACT stages. Seattle Children's Theater has also been part of some of these talks.

In the end, all that came of the discussions (not surprisingly) was an agreement to combine on some educational programs; the theaters already swap costumes and props and they agreed jointly on a ticket-management system. One reason for the failed talks, aside from pride and the threat to jobs, is that the three main theaters have distinct approaches. The Rep concentrates on production values, ACT on acting, and Intiman on its edgy directors.

Gee, I would think all three would like to think they have good acting!

But seriously, mergers have got to be in the offing amongst some of our suffering nonprofits, no?  Personally the idea appeals to me, but not the inevitable layoffs, of course.  Maybe the logistics of nonprofit make it more complicated than it seems?

Havel's "The Memorandum"

In this week's Time Out, my review of Vaclav Havel's 1960s Czech comedy The Memorandum, in a rare revival by the TACT company.

My reaction to the production is, as you'll see, mixed.  But for the Havel-curious, it's pretty much a must-see. Just not a guaranteed night of entertainment.  And I wish I had space in print to single out some very fine performances by Joel Leffert (pictured) as the stern indoctrinator, Mark Alhadeff as the icy antagonist, and Jeffrey C. Hawkins' mime-like corporate tool.

Humana Fest 2011

Some familiar names--Rapp, Washburn. Jordan Harris--but other lesser-knowns are featured in the upcoming slate for what is, arguably, America's biggest new play festival.

The hometown Louisville paper gives an overview of this year and the program's 35 year history.

Not that this has anything to do with Louisville, Kentucky of course.  The host, Actors Theatre of Louisville once upon a time had a high profile thanks to AD Jon Jory.  What happened?