Spiderman Preview Thread! — Page 15

Oh god give it a rest about paying previews, reviews before opening etc, or at least do it on another thread. This topic comes up everytime a major show opens, everything has been said before.

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"In less than 12 hours since it started its first preview, there are 15 PAGES (with what 20 comments a page?) of opinions being read by numberless people."

Which is worth an unpaid fortune in publicity. Many, many producers would kill to have that kind of immediate response to their product.

Of course, they would also prefer the chatter to be positive, but thems the chances you take.

If people stopped paying full price for previews the price for those shows would go down.

It's that simple. Stop asking producers to lower prices when they're only interested in turning a profit, it makes you sound stupid.

For the record, since I'm not sure anyone else has said it here, last night's first public performance was also it's first full dress runthrough. I know that's happened before in Broadway history. I'm just pointing out that that's bad planning by many people, Taymor included.

Can someone type or scan from the Playbill the listing of who plays which role, and who covers which role?

It would be greatly appreciated!

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The weave scene looked awesome on 60 mins

Previews were always half price back in the day, and if you are
running a $25-60 million show you can afford to sell your previews for 1/2 price

Julie should go see Wicked Tuesday night, understand the tourist magic that Wicked holds every night, tweak Spiderman to fit that and slowly change the show to the winner that NYC Broadway needs right now, can Broadway really afford for this show to not work? Broadway needs another Cats 1980. Phantom 90's . Producers 00 ..can Spiderman be the next big one? let us hope so ..rising tide lifts all boats..We need it

and for an ending please have people walk out of the theater happy, life sucks enough these days with out depressing people and families with a $140 dark ending

I admire the ambition behind the show and it looks stunning from what I've seen of the footage but the thing is, once all the technical problems have been ironed out and even with some changes made, is it really just going boil down to a case of it being style over substance? Because from what I can gather the central characters are just not being developed and are rather 2-dimensional. If there's no chance of that happening I think I'd rather sit through Cirque de Solei.

Ive not seen the show so this just my opinion on what ive read, clips etc
Previews will always be bumpy, its trial and error, this has been going on for a long long time and all the posts in the world about ‘the audience should not be paying to see unfinished work’ or ‘preview costs are too high’ etc won’t change a damn thing.

It’s a shame when people who know little about theatre end up accidently booking for a preview but it’s not those people who we hear moaning about it, the ones who annoy me the MOST are people on boards like this who watch a preview that is bumpy etc and then moan about it. You ALL know on here what previews are, you know the technical complications of this show and what they are attempting etc so if you chose to see a preview (especially a first one) and then thought twice about it when the show was not perfect then you have nobody to blame but yourselves.
You are not inexperienced when it comes to theatre so you know by rushing to the ticket office and booking for an early preview is a gamble, the show you will see will not turn out to be the show that opens to the press.

As for the music ive heard about 4 songs now and I really like it but im really in to the whole moody rock/pop thing, I think that is just going to come down to a matter of a taste. A few people on other boards have put they enjoyed the music.

The book is something that I can’t comment on but it seems to be everyone’s sore point so I will take everyone’s word that it’s problematic. They have 6 weeks of previews to work on that and im sure they will do a lot of work. Nobody involved with this production is stupid and they all know they need to get the show in the best possible state to keep it running. I think we will see some major work done to the show over the next 6 weeks.

Im not defending the show as I have not seen it, I would watch it on my next trip over but it would not be my top pick, however I think people just need to let this show do what it needs to do before shouting it’s doomed after its first public performance. So many new elements are clearly getting a first outing at that theatre and that needs to be taken in to account.

Also EVERYONE who purchases a ticket to a show should have the right to comment on the show of course because members of the Spiderman Team will be reading over everything on all boards etc to get an idea of what is working and what is not. Nowadays it’s not about audience response in the venue its about what they post on places like this after they get homes, that’s what Taymor and the rest will be looking at, clearly many on here have some great ideas about what could be cut.....and I bet we see that happen. I know when my company opens a new show in the UK it’s through places like this and other theatre sites that we look through and listen to what people are saying so we can see what we have to change.

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Don't compare the two just yet... Taboo was actually quality... sort of. At least the cast was good.

That being said, can anyone who SAW the show please elaborate on the villains in it? How much do we see of the ones other than Green Goblin? And do they really change the Uncle Ben death so much it's distracting?

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It feels like a lot of the complaints are coming from misplaced expectations. As in, when the show was announced as a new and original adventure of Spider-Man, a lot of people thought they were getting an adaptation of the first movie. I have a feeling, with some technical tightening and revised dialog, the show is going to work real well by opening.

In theory, I like the idea of the Geek Chorus and an expanded mythology of Spider-Man. It intrigues me. It sounds like theater. Smart theater. Challenging theater. Not a movie. Not a comic book. Theater. While I personally joke all the time about Taymor not having an edit button in her programming, at the very least she knows how to create a cohesive vision. She will find a way to balance the new conventions with the Spider-Man experience and present a singular conceit on Broadway. There will be no in between with this show; it will be polarizing, and people will say it's spectacular or horrendous.

The sad thing about these posts on this board is this: the show is very entertaining visually. The kinks in the effects can be worked out and smoothed with more performances/previews/run-throughs. The thing that looks like it needs the most work, based on the complaints from people who saw the show, is the book and score. I feel like until they get the technical side worked out, they can begin to pay attention to the book and the score's flaws. This also poses a problem. They may have to resort to modifying the material around the set because they will have taken all that time to work out the problems, that adding anything more technically, could set them back even more. Take all the time you need, Spiderman. Like I said earlier, I hope any show realizes their flaws and takes the time to correct them. But also put me on the boat that says ticket prices during previews should be lower. That's not a huge request.

Julesboogie asks an interesting question: is there a better name than preview? In the computer software world, the closest equivalent might be Beta. You understand you're getting a fairly complete product, but are likely to encounter some unexpected bugs. Of course, most Beta versions are released for free, but any software does do upgrades on their paid products once additional bugs are found.

I recently bought a ticket for a open rehearsal of the Philharmonic for $25. That's far less than the seats for the actual show, but I understand going in that it won't be the real show either. In fact I know I would paid money to see rehearsals of just about any theatre performance because I'm interested in the process of how shows get developed.

Seems like some of te major questions on this topic are (1) is there a better name for previews? (2) Regardless of what they are called, what does the public have a right to expect and what communication/info should be offered to them to manage those expectations at the time of purchasing a ticket? and (3) What's the fair price for someone to see a work-in-progress?