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Masthead
A CurtainUp "Non-Review"
Spider-man-ia
By Elyse Sommer
If the psychic Clyde Haberman of The New York Times met at a bar is to be believed, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark might end up creating a new break-even template for Broadway producers as well as mark the end of the Great Recession -- at least in New York.
According to Haberman's omniscient bar contact, the beleaguered musical will open on Broadway on Sept. 19th instead of the latest official February 7th date, shattering all preview records with a 42 weeks unofficially opened and reviewed run. That Psychic may be an accountant incognito though it doesn't take a CPA degree to figure out that if audiences continue to shell out about $200 a pop in sufficient numbers to fill the house even longer, say until 2015, the producers might end up looking like much more savvy investors than those who put their faith in Bernie Madoff instead of Julie Taymor. This extraordinary show of discretionary income would also indicate that the financial outlook generally is indeed improving: Case in point #1 -- jobs paying enough to support those $200 tickets. case in point #2: In print media who have themselves been besieged by psychics predicting their imminent demise, may actually show signs of renewed life and prosperity. Instead of firing crtics they are finding funds for their theater critics to join those from Newsday and Bloomberg News to buy tickets in order to write reviews masquerading as being part of the Spider-Man-as-news conversation, instead of waiting for them to see the show when the press is "comped."
Of course, if Haberman's psychic bar contact is to be believed rather than showing the effects of one drink too many, if Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark continues to demand these unofficial review-reports for several years, it will have a positive ripple effect on the mental health profession which would devote many billable hours treating Spider-man-ia. Repeat ticket buyers and the critics-cum-reporters revisiting the show every few months are likely to come down with this disease, the most extreme symptom of which would be a compulsion to fly by actually jumping out of windows and off bridges).
Slings & Arrows-the complete set
You don't have to be a Shakespeare aficionado to love all 21 episodes of this hilarious and moving Canadian TV series about a fictional Shakespeare Company
