misterhippity:

aatombomb:

theweekmagazine:

The opening performance has been delayed until January, partially because the director is still trying to figure out how to make the characters fly. Two actors have been injured rehearsing a maneuver in which they are “launched from the back of the stage like a slingshot.”

That in itself is enough to make me want to go see it, whenever it opens.

However, the New York Post predicts the show will be “the biggest financial disaster in Broadway history.” Yikes.

We have two friends working on the hair for this, it’s going to be a massive show. Whether or not it makes any money is another issue. 

Have they figured out how to do the hair without killing anyone, at least?

I have close friends and family on the production team for this show, and although most of the missives from the front lines are about riding in the elevator with Bono and his kids today’s crop talked a lot about where they are with the tech, why they didn’t show all the flying stunts to the Department of Labor yesterday (as I understand it was as much about time management as what was ready), and what the best scenes look like (even in words it sounds beautiful, imaginative, unexpected, and impossible).

For an example of what kinds of invention are going on pretty much 24 hours a day at the Foxwoods right now, they recently discovered they can use a tiny piece of nautical hardware called a sea catch to release the girls who swing in on aerial silks. But they want the girls to swing in unison, which means be released in unison, so the TD takes the sea catches to the automation guy and says, “Make these operate remotely.” That’s like taking a bunch of screws to the automation guy and saying “Make these operate remotely.” But being the genius who’s already solved a dozen other similar problems of this type, he did it. The girls swing in in unison.

It can be easy to get one’s heckles up about all of this braying in the media but as I pointed out yesterday, none of it is necessarily a bad thing if when the show opens it has something to sell. It’s VERY good for a wide audience to be aware of, and waiting for, the opening of a show, whether or not they have positive expectations. I was only a child but I recall both Phantom and Saigon opening with a lot of sturm und drang and most of it snide-to-negative, and I think even Les Miz was the same way although that I get from lore alone. It’s even good for the public to have a picture of the director as a kook; everyone loves a good freak show. 

From what I read this morning there are some visual elements — many that don’t involve flight, many that do — that are breathtaking, elegant, weird, downright cool. There are some things that people aren’t personally fond of, but because nobody’s seen the whole show yet there’s no way to say if it’s a good evening at the theater or not.

What’s undeniable is that it’s been awhile since something made waves like this on Broadway, the type where everyone wants to get a peek at what’s behind the curtain. From what I’ve seen (and yes, I’ve seen some awesome video) it’s something you’re gonna wanna see live, even if comic books aren’t your thing.