The Spider-Man Musical Is Still Doin’ Great
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?By which, of course, I mean that $0-budget Spider-Man musical I mentioned the other day called The Spidey Project a.k.a. Spiderman Smackdown. Tickets for both of the musical’s two shows — which I remind you was conceived, written, composed, cast and rehearsed between February 21st and now — sold out in seconds, according to The Mary Sue. The first show is scheduled to open on March 14th at the People’s Improv Theater, a day before the decidedly higher budget Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical opens on March 15th.
In related and deeply hilarious news, it looks like TOtD won’t be opening on March 15th either. The NY Times reports the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued three major safety violations to the musical last Friday, with a fine of $12,600 (which is admittedly nothing to the $70 million musical). And now, friend of director Julie Taymor Roger Friedman says that Taymor will like push the opening to June, to allow new hires playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and conductor Paul Bogaev to see what they can do with the thing. This also has the benefit of keeping the musical from being eligible for this year’s Tony awards, which they were probably trying to get into before, but now desperately want to avoid because they will get massacred.
The best part of all of this? It’s that The Spidey Project didn’t need to rush. (Via Robot 6)
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.