Comments

1
Plot? We don't need no stinking plot!
2
What? You mean there aren't seventy gazillion fan-boys in the greater NYC metro area willing to fork over $125 a seat for this?

The person I feel most sorry for is Berger, an otherwise very creative and talented writer who will probably never get another major commission after this disaster is finally put out of its misery.
3
Broadway still exists?
4
oh! swiss miss! she has corkscrews for arms! it's like she's a living swiss army knife! how clever is that?

fml.
5
@4,

And here I was thinking she'd make me a nice cup of hot cocoa.
6
@2: I dunno, fanboys going to a musical? I mean, yeah, they often basically BEG people to take their money, but ... a musical?
7
That Michael Riedel is absolutely loving this disaster-in-the-making. If you watch the documentary Show Business, he comes across as a total asshole.
8
"Nobody should be the producer/writer/composer/director/star of anything."

I've been thinking about that lately. If it’s true, then WHY is it true? Is it that all art needs to be collaborative? Or is it just theater? (If it’s only certain disciplines, then why those ones? Why don’t painters need directors? Why are musicians allowed to be soloists?)

Presumably, the worry is that there’s a greater chance of your art sucking when you don’t have these other people working with you. (It sounds like C. Rainey Lewis’s show sucked pretty bad.) Is that the only worry?

If so, then what’s so bad about that? I really liked Rebbecca Brown’s piece in the Stranger (2-9-2010) about the importance of failure in art. If we agree that artists ought not be afraid of failure, does that undermine the motivation for the idea that "Nobody should be the producer/writer/composer/director/star of anything."?

Other than the fear of making bad art, are there other reasons to think that all art (or at least all theater) should be art by committee?
9
@8: I think that when you undertake doing all the roles you have two major pitfalls to avoid. 1) You're going to spread yourself too thin and do nothing well. The "Jack of all trades, master of none" syndrome. 2) When there are no competing viewpoints it becomes very easy for the work to be created for one person's enjoyment -- the producer/writer/composer/director/star. You have to be willing to kill your babies in the theatre and if no one is there to remind you of that, it's easy to forget. Occasionally it might work, but that's going to be exception (see Welles), not the rule.
10
Welles was brilliant, but Citizen Kane crosses over into immortality because of the camera work of Gregg Toland...and, Mankiewiecz deserves quite a bit of credit as well.
11
Alright, look fellows--
Reidel makes stuff up. Or at least that's one explanation for his chronically toxic and misinformed articles on Broadway theatre. I understand that because it's in print surely it must be true, but...it ain't. (The list of errors, truth-fudging, whatever you want to call it in this latest article--ah geez, don't get me started). But I will say--it's fascinating to see how information disseminates. Because, no, journalists don't do their own digging to try and corroborate what Michael writes. They don't try interviewing someone actually involved in the production--they just report on Michael's "reporting." Which would be bad enough, but details also inevitably mutate--e.g. he didn't say i had "never written a musical", he said I had never written a BROADWAY musical (which is true enough). But eventually this article will get picked up and Berger "has never written a play." I'm just saying--my five year old decides she isn't going to like dinner before I even set down the plate. But we aren't all five right? "The most expensive show"? Fine. But "the most expensive flop"? Can we not wait til--I don't know--someone actually sees the show for that one? Late Fall...Late Fall...
12
the people writing this crap and regurgitating it, are just a bunch of failures who want attention.
13
@11: Actually, you should get started. What did Riedel (and, if you really are Glen Berger, you might want to get the critic's name right) make up? What was erroneous or fudged? I'm asking honestly, because I think this production is going to be talked about for years no matter which way it goes. If you don't get the truth out there, Riedel's account will be the record.
14
why doesn't the writer of this post, contact glen b.?
obviously, it's the guy
15
to clarify, brendan kiley, who picked up this story, should take glen b. up on communicating.
16
Well, the truth will out eventually, and it's all a weirdly jameson v. spider-man life-imitating-art dynamic, but--okay, just for an example brought up by michael and Brendan--Julie wanting a whole theater built just for her show as if she's some power-addled kubla khan demanding a pleasure palace...The truth is that when we were looking around for a theatre, we got word that the builders of a new high-rise going up I think on 44th were contemplating putting a broadway theatre in the ground floor (a potentially good source of rent). Julie and the producers, aware that renovating an existing theatre to accomodate flying would cost a bundle, figured they would actually SAVE money if they could be the tenant of this new theatre, which would be built with Spider-Man (or other circus-y shows) in mind. In the end, the builders decided not to build a theatre at all. This is a kind of a boring story isn't it? Now, either Michael knows the real story and decided to spin it to fit his "julie's out of control" narrative, or he got his information 3rd-hand, and all those hands are kinda grubby. Which is all to say--I think it's the Quakers who teach that before speaking you should ask--is it kind? is true? and is it necessary? I'm guessing Michael isn't a Quaker...
17
And one more little point (I'm finding this cathartic)--Michael quotes a "reader" as saying the plot is "incomprehensible." Well, okay, maybe this "reader" is the greatest dramaturge since Thespis. Or maybe he/she is a tycoon looking to invest but has never read a script before. Or maybe he/she is just an idiot. Or maybe--seriously--the reader doesn't even exist. Everyone can see the plot for themselves in the Fall. But--think on this--Spider-Man is a very precious property to Marvel--you think they didn't vet the script a hundred ways to Sunday? Believe me, they vetted this thing. AND, we're also all very aware that parents will be taking their young children to this show--one of my day jobs (or to put it another way, one of my emmy-award-winning day jobs) is writing kids tv for pbs--believe me--it's Spider-Man--it's no great effort making sure it doesn't become Finnegans Wake the Musical...

Please wait...

and remember to be decent to everyone
all of the time.

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