Bono and Glen Beck buddies, as Spiderman delayed for the FIFTH time

U2’s Spiderman musical on Broadway will not now open until March 15^th, after producers postponed the opening night for a fifth time.

The show, Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, had been due to finally open on February 7^th, but its creators, which includes Bono and the Edge, say they are still fine-tuning aspects of the show, including a new ending.

“We simply need more time to execute the creative team’s vision,” said producer Michael Cohl, adding that the show was “ten times more complicated” to technically rehearse than anything else.

He said the schedule of previews allowed just 12 hours a week for rehearsals.

“I picked a date in March that allows me to ensure this will be the final postponement,” said Mr Cohl.

The $65m production will have been in previews for longer than any other show in history by the time it 

opens.

Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark has become the biggest hit on Broadway since previews began in November.

Last week, it overtook the long-running Wicked as the highest grossing musical in New York, raking in more than $1.5m in ticket sales.

But there is controversy that this success has come without an opportunity for critics to give their verdicts.

There is a convention among New York theatre critics that shows are not reviewed during previews, but only 

after they officially open.

However, given the massive delays, some publications have already broken this rule, arguing that audiences are paying full price for tickets and deserve to get an independent critical assessment of the show’s quality.

It’s very likely that others will now be tempted to review the show too, given that there are two full months before it “officially” opens.

One positive review has come from an unusual source – conservative radio host and Fox News pundit Glenn Beck said it was “by far the best show I’ve ever seen”.

On his radio programme this week, he spent 30 minutes heaping praise on the show, predicting it would be the “Phantom of the 21^st Century”, and accusing early reviewers who panned the show of snobbery.

He describes hanging out backstage with Bono, and giving advice to the U2 man on how to improve the show.

The production has been bedeviled by problems – four actors have been injured in separate accidents, audiences have reported technical difficulties during its spectacular aerial stunts, and one of its lead actor’s Natalie Mendoza quit the show last month.

Nonetheless audiences are still flocking to previews, with some paying up to $292.50 for a ticket.

Bono and the Edge are not thought to be writing any more new music for the show, but they have drafted in album producer Steve Lillywhite, who worked with U2 on October, War and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, to help with Spiderman.

Imagine Ireland launches in the US

Gabriel Byrne and Colum McCann

The biggest ever promotion of Irish arts in the US has been launched in New York.

Over the next 12 months 400 individual events will take place across 40 States - in an attempt to rebuild Ireland's reputation by reminding Americans of its rich cultural and artistic traditions.

Here's a radio feature I did for RTE's Morning Ireland on the launch, featuring Gabriel Byrne, Colum McCann and others.


[It was broadcast Monday January 10th, and is similar to my written blog entry on the launch, but also contains new material]


http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0110/morningireland.html

Tourism Minister defends Paddy's Day junkets

Minister Mary Hanafin pictured with Eugene Downes, Culture Ireland, actor Gabriel Byrne, author Colum McCann and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at the launch of Imagine Ireland on Friday

The Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin has confirmed that preparations are proceeding for members of the government to travel overseas for St Patrick’s Day, despite the likelihood that it could be in the final days of a general election campaign.

Speaking in NewYork on Friday, the Minister accused Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny of being “far too cynical about the importance of St Patrick’s Day”. The Opposition leader had argued that trips by ministers would be viewed as a “cynical swansong” by the public, and claimed some foreign leaders might not wish to meet lame-duck ministers, who could be out of office just weeks later.

“We should be all out there taking this opportunity to promote Ireland,” Minister Hanafin said, “St Patrick’s Day is our opportunity – any other country in the world would kill for it.”

“If the leader of the Opposition wants to go as well, I don’t see any difficulty,” she added.

She denied that photographs of Taoiseach Brian Cowen with US President Barack Obama in the White House, would sprinkle a little stardust on the closing stages of a Fianna Fail campaign. She said that photos of Mr Cowen with Barack Obama had been seen before and would be nothing new for the public. 

“The St Patrick’s Day message this year will be about investment, it will about the strong reputation of Ireland.”

Asked if it would not be better to hold the election before St Patrick’s Day, and allow the foreign trips to be the first big event for a new administration, she said “the message is the same”.

“The message is about Ireland. The message is not about Mary Hanafin. It’s not about Brian Cowen. It’s about Ireland as a place to invest. It’s about Ireland as a place to visit. It doesn’t matter really who the messenger is, it’s the message that is important for St Patrick’s Day.”

She said planning was already underway for the visits, because regardless of who goes, the programs in the host cities are pretty much set. “So for example I’ve attended in New York for a couple of years,” she said, “And there is the program of the Mayor’s breakfast, the Governor’s breakfast, meeting all the political leaders and a huge round of media opportunities.”

She said London was particularly important this year from the point of tourism and she hoped as Minister for Tourism to promote Ireland in the market there. “The planning goes ahead, the programming goes ahead,” she said, “The only thing that has to be slotted in is the individual.”

She said the election date was a matter for the Taoiseach to decide. “But the one thing that should not happen, it should not be on Patrick’s weekend,” she said, “Because we don’t want it to interfere with that.”

100 years of the Abbey Theatre in the US

Ireland's national theatre, the Abbey, is celebrating the centenary of its first tour to the US with another tour in 2011. 

Previews of their first show "John Gabriel Borkman" with Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw and Lindsay Duncan begin at BAM in Brooklyn tonight (Fri Jan 7th). 

Here's a feature I did for RTE's Morning Ireland radio programme this morning for those interested...

http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/

CURSE OF SPIDERMAN STRIKES AGAIN

A still image taken from an audience member's cellphone footage of the fall

They used to call Macbeth the “cursed” play - but now it seem like the Shakespearian classic has a rival in U2’s new Spiderman musical on Broadway.

The $65m production, which has been bedevilled by delays and injuries, suffered another major setback with a serious accident at Monday night’s preview performance in New York. Audience members watched in horror as a stuntman playing Spiderman fell up to 30 feet into the orchestra pit at the front of the stage, after a safety harness failed with seven minutes left to go in the show. The actor, Christopher Tierney, who is the lead double for Spiderman actor Reeve Carney,  was stretchered out of the theatre and taken to hospital by ambulance for treatment on minor injuries.

Questions are once again being asked about whether the show is safe to work on. New York’s Department of Labour was due to visit the set today, and actors union Equity said it was monitoring the situation.

The accident happened during a scene where Spiderman comes to the rescue of girlfriend Mary Jane, who is dangling from a bridge. The safety harness  which was meant to hold Spiderman in place as the lights went out, instead flicked off his back leaving the actor to fall the equivalent of two storeys, according to audience members. There was a cry of “Call 911” from fellow actors, and producers told the audience they were halting the show and asked them  to leave.

[New York Times has a video taken by an audience member of the fall, view it here]

Tierney is the fourth actor to be injured on the show. At the first preview in November, actress Natalie Mendoza who plays new villain Arachne, suffered concussion. She only returned to performances last week after two weeks of rest. Last night she tweeted, “Please pray for Chris, my superhero who quietly inspires me every day with his spirit. A light in my heart went dim tonight”. Two other actors were injured during rehearsals, one breaking a toe, the other breaking both his wrists during the complicated stunts in the show.

Just last week, producers confirmed they were pushing back opening night for the show yet again. It is now due to open on February 7th instead of January 11th. The creators are still tweaking the production - reports suggest they were considering a completely new finale for the show after a lukewarm response during previews. Lead Producer Michael Cohl said it had “become clear that we need to give the team more time to execute their vision” and that he had “no intention of cutting a single corner in getting to the finish line”.

Bono and the Edge, who have been touring Australia and New Zealand with U2, are expected to return to the Foxwoods Theatre off Times Square to renew work on it after Christmas. The show is the most expensive production ever to be staged on Broadway. There were no scheduled shows for Tuesday night, but two performances were due to take place on Wednesday.

$1.7m is not enough to buy a chair

Are you sitting comfortably? Right, we can begin.

How much would you pay for this chair?

If your answer was anything below two million dollars, forget about it.

At Christie’s Auction House in Manhattan last night, the item failed to sell despite bids of up to $1.7m. The elegant piece of furniture was designed by Irish-born art decor legend Eileen Gray between 1917 and 1919.

There was a lot of buzz in the room when the piece came up for sale – because last year in Paris, a different chair by the same designer sold for a whopping €21.9m (over $29m). That chair had been in the collection of the late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner. The sale set a new record high for a piece of 20^th century furniture.

So you can imagine the surprise when bids only reached $1.7m for this one. The auctioneer quickly passed the sale, which essentially means it was withdrawn because it was not enough to satisfy its current owners.

It is truly an astonishing thing to say – but I was in a room where someone offered to pay $1.7 million dollars for a chair, and it wasn’t enough. Moments later, another chair (bronze armchair by designer Armond Albert Rateau, if you must know) was sold, realizing over $2 million dollars.

I am not an art critic, nor an expert in design. So I cannot tell the difference between a two million dollar chair, and a sixty-thousand dollar one, or indeed one from the local antique shop for a few hundred bucks. But let me tell you my impressions of the chair. It was pretty. It was elegant. It certainly had style and class. No, I didn’t get to sit on it. But I did examine it up close and it is clearly a work of art.

So here’s some more juice about the Eileen Gray chair:  It is called Sirene, and is a “lacquered and painted beech armchair”, with a velvet seat and a signature mermaid motif on its back.  Ms Gray made it for her close personal friend and rumoured lover, a French singer called Damia.

So why didn’t it sell?

Who the hell knows! Maybe potential bidders were put off by the freakishly high price paid for the other chair. It certainly is not because Eileen Gray has diminished in anyone’s eyes. Indeed, minutes after the sale for her chair was passed, a wooden “brick” screen designed by her in 1923 realised $842,500. It’s an imposing piece, as much a work of art as a practical piece of furniture, and was one of two that Ms Gray kept in her own home in Paris through her life (the other one is owned now by the National Museum of Ireland and is on display at Collins Barracks).  A telephone bidder bought it – we don’t know who he is but can speculate that he is a private collector as he purchased several other items in the auction.

Overall, the sales of furniture during the one hour auction realized almost $8m dollars.

I’d never been to an auction like that before – it truly was a different world. Astounding sums of money being paid for what in the end of the day is just furniture. But its proof that design is truly and art, and those who know about it can appreciate it.

What now for that chair? Well the private collector in Colorado that owns it may yet find a buyer. It’s not uncommon in cases like this for private approaches to be made in the days following the auction.

As I left Christies and walked out into the Rockefeller Plaza and the freezing winter cold, all I could do was wonder what it must feel like to sit in a two million dollar chair.  I’m still trying to imagine it now as I write, sitting on a hard cheap chair that I assembled myself (one of a collection of four black plastic flat-pack chairs, designed for Door Store, circa 2009, $80!). 

I think the word is...rich. 

Spiderman snares $1m ticket sales despite disastrous first preview

Reeve Carney who plays Peter Parker/Spiderman

Producers of the new U2 Spiderman musical on Broadway say they sold $1 million worth of tickets to the show, within 24 hours of its first preview on Sunday night. That’s despite a series of major technical problems which caused the first performance to be halted five times.  Audience members reported that, at one point, the actor playing Spiderman was left dangling from wires ten feet over the heads of the audience due to a glitch with the spectacular aerial stunts.

One critic, Michael Riedel of the New York Post, branded Sunday’s preview “an epic flop” and claimed the $65m production had “a dull score and a baffling script”. But the negative reports have not hurt public interest in the musical, which officially opens on January 11^th. As previews resumed on Broadway last night, lead producer Michael Cohl announced that audiences have given the show a one million dollar vote of confidence. “We’re thrilled to finally be performing this terrific show for audiences,” said Cohl, “and we’re excited that audiences are coming in droves.”

Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark is the most expensive show ever staged on Broadway. Its lyrics and music were written by Bono and the Edge, and it’s directed by Julie Taymor, the talent behind the smash hit The Lion King. The long-delayed production has been kept under wraps until recent weeks, but now that it’s been performed for the first time in front of audiences, a major marketing effort has swung into action. Behind-the-scenes footage of Bono and the Edge composing songs for the show were screened across the US as part of a CBS 60 Minutes special on Sunday night. And 30-second TV advertising spots have been aired regularly since the first show. The musical also has a partnership deal with SyFy, a cable television channel specialising in science fiction and fantasy programming, in the hope that the musical can attract an audience not traditionally associated with Broadway.

Official reviews of the new shows are not published until after the official opening, but such is the level of interest in Spiderman, the internet has been abuzz with comment since Sunday night’s first show. The general consensus is that while there are major issues to be ironed out, the staging is spectacular and it has the potential to be a crowd-pleasing smash. But worryingly many of Sunday’s audience also had complaints over plot cohesion and some described the music as “hit and miss”. The production needs a long successful run in order to recoup the massive investment and prevent going down in history as the most expensive flop ever on Broadway.