The Spider-Man Musical: Threat or Menace?

?At last night’s “practice” performance of the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical — a musical that already injured three stunt men, whose premiere had recently been delayed for a third time until February, and whose second act is currently being re-written anyways because it makes no sense — a stunt man fell 30 feet to the ground during the Spider-Man/Green Goblin fight. 911 was called, the play was immediately stopped and the audience was removed from the building. Happily, the stunt man is apparently awake and in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital, so he isn’t dead or paralyzed or anything.

In related news, fuck this thing. It’s one thing for the musical to be rushed and the storytellling suck, but it’s another thing entirely to not have the stunt ready and tested and safe. I understand the rush — the production is infinitely in the whole, they need to start making a profit — but you can’t do that at the expense of human fucking lives. I swear, this is like some horrible plot from a Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon, where Mysterio puts on an “evil musical” for some reason.

The show needs to be shut down — either until they get their shit together or permanently. I’ll feel bad for the other workers who lose their jobs (although that’s kind of the nature of Broadway, you work project to project, not unlike Hollywood — if you want job stability you become an accountant, not an art theater major) but not nearly as bad as I’ll feel if someone actually dies trying to perform this stupid thing. And furious, because everyone in the fucking world knows a death is coming, except for possibly Taymor and Bono. The irony is that we need a superhero to shut this goddamn superhero musical down, because I don’t know that the producers will.