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September 28, 2012 1:05 PM   Subscribe

Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn of the Dark is now taking pictures of its audiences, and posting them to Facebook so you can tag yourself watching a Broadway show.
posted by roomthreeseventeen (49 comments total)
 
PROOF people are going to this show.
posted by The Whelk at 1:07 PM on September 28, 2012 [11 favorites]


Oh man I so wanted to go when I was in town in July but the siren song of Angela Lansbury was too much to resist.
posted by yellowbinder at 1:12 PM on September 28, 2012


Um. Not that I'm headed toward Broadway anyway, but a comfortable seat in a darkened theater with a story unfolding before me is just about the last place I want to be photographed. Watching a show/concert/movie, I don't even want to remember I exist, I want to suspend disbelief and get lost in it. If I'm self-conscious about whatever dumbfounded expression I might be making, I'm not going to get into the story.
posted by headnsouth at 1:13 PM on September 28, 2012 [5 favorites]


Maybe they'll also start selling rotten fruit at the doors?
posted by backseatpilot at 1:13 PM on September 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


I'm picturing just photo after photo after photo of hideously mangled bodies under screaming audience members.
posted by griphus at 1:13 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


This has got to be for insurance purposes. Like the Russian dashboard cams.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:13 PM on September 28, 2012 [8 favorites]


Er, on top of. Not under. That's a very different show.
posted by griphus at 1:14 PM on September 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


That's kind of hilarious....the Spider Man part but not sure about the show ;)
posted by molisk at 1:14 PM on September 28, 2012


Er, on top of. Not under. That's a very different show.

"And we've got a very special gift for our audience today.. everyone: look under your seat!"

and the wailing begins
posted by theodolite at 1:16 PM on September 28, 2012 [8 favorites]


spidey what are you doing to those people
posted by beaucoupkevin at 1:16 PM on September 28, 2012


Stage photography is hard, and probably shouldn't be automated.

This is pretty compelling proof of that.

Holy Dynamic Range, BatSpiderman!
posted by schmod at 1:17 PM on September 28, 2012


*facepalm*

My day job is very removed from theater. Anytime anyone finds out about my theater background, invariably they ask if I've ever done Broadway, or they ask about stuff I've seen on Broadway.

They don't quite get why I always sort of snort and blow that question off, or why I say "Broadway's different." Maybe this will help.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:18 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


In The Lion King they actually let a lion loose into the audience during the third act.
posted by griphus at 1:18 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


Iron Maiden posts photos on FB so you can tag yourself, not really sure what the point is.
posted by MikeMc at 1:20 PM on September 28, 2012


I am totally going to see this in two weeks. Do they make personal black boxes, like for airplanes?
posted by asperity at 1:20 PM on September 28, 2012


I'm picturing just photo after photo after photo of hideously mangled bodies under screaming audience members.

Er, on top of. Not under. That's a very different show.


You're right. You're thinking of Jaws: The Musical, which pioneered the glass-bottomed audience seating. It was tagged as "the soggiest production since Titanic: Dance with the Ocean."
posted by filthy light thief at 1:22 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


SPIDER-MAN: Turn Off The Dark on FACEBOOK
-Sandman, Lucky Lobo and Morlun attended and Liked this show.
posted by Smart Dalek at 1:22 PM on September 28, 2012


Let the boob flashing begin!
posted by spilon at 1:23 PM on September 28, 2012 [5 favorites]


Also, this reminds me of amusement park photos. Too bad they don't offer the audience members these photos of themselves after shows. You know, for the memories.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:23 PM on September 28, 2012


PROOF people are going to this show.

To be fair, it has been doing pretty well ticket wise. Well enough to actually turn a profit on its huge costs eventually? Who knows.
posted by kmz at 1:24 PM on September 28, 2012


I wonder if they'll win a Webby for this.
posted by not_on_display at 1:37 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


To be fair, it has been doing pretty well ticket wise. Well enough to actually turn a profit on its huge costs eventually? Who knows.

The Gothamist snarked: Worse, they are posting them on Facebook so that tourists can tag themselves and tell the world that they saw the least entertaining thing on Broadway.

I tend to agree with the idea that the audience is largely tourists now. Performances started in November 2010, even though it officially opened on June 14, 2011. It's now September 2012, so I'm guessing most locals who wanted to see this have already done so. And if there are more tourists than not, the Facebook photos are even better publicity.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:37 PM on September 28, 2012


Is there no place you can privately make out in public anymore?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:38 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


They better hope nobody is having an affair!
posted by srboisvert at 1:43 PM on September 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


I am working on a Musical called Times Square. It is a history of Time Square, from when it was first mentioned as a twilight area in Junky, On the Road and City of Night. Through the struggle of the indigenous thieves, hustlers and prostitutes against the Times Square BID. To its current day incarnation. The show ends with me working on Times Square, and the Triumphant Opening night.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:44 PM on September 28, 2012


In The Lion King they actually let a lion loose into the audience during the third act.

I would refute this statement, but I have photographic evidence to disprove it.
posted by cottoncandybeard at 1:45 PM on September 28, 2012


I am working on a Musical called Times Square. It is a history of Time Square, from when it was first mentioned as a twilight area in Junky, On the Road and City of Night. Through the struggle of the indigenous thieves, hustlers and prostitutes against the Times Square BID. To its current day incarnation. The show ends with me working on Times Square, and the Triumphant Opening night.


Oooh...just like Muppets Take Manhattan!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:46 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


Okay, now I just want a Midnight Cowboy Broadway spectacle.
posted by griphus at 1:47 PM on September 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


Let's start a Kickstarter campaign to get JK Simmons to attend the show in full JJ Jameson get up. Right before the camera flashes, he'll chomp a cigar and rip a newspaper in half.

A 20$ donation gets you a high five from any Spider fan you tell about the project.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:51 PM on September 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


Can we get JK Rowling to do the same thing instead? I think she's got a bigger draw.
posted by griphus at 1:53 PM on September 28, 2012


To be fair, it has been doing pretty well ticket wise. Well enough to actually turn a profit on its huge costs eventually? Who knows.

From what I can tell, it is usually in the top 5 in revenue each, and every, week. It's pulling over a million a week pretty easily and has done for quite awhile. Whether it can do it long enough to recoup, I don't know yet.
posted by Stynxno at 1:55 PM on September 28, 2012


This is probably an OSHA requirement they're trying to spin into a marketing idea.
posted by inturnaround at 1:57 PM on September 28, 2012 [3 favorites]


rip a newspaper the Playbill in half.
posted by zamboni at 1:57 PM on September 28, 2012


Okay, now I just want a Midnight Cowboy Broadway spectacle.

You could open the show with everybody talking at the audience, who can't hear a word they're saying.
posted by hippybear at 1:59 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


Iron Maiden posts photos on FB

I'm pretty sure the point is to promote


That's pretty much all you need of those two sentences.
posted by hippybear at 2:06 PM on September 28, 2012


Okay, now I also want a Judas Priest jukebox musical with a kickline composed entirely of guys in leather jackets, chaps and peaked caps.
posted by griphus at 2:12 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


It is a history of Time Square,

... and its gradual growth into Time Cube.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:15 PM on September 28, 2012 [4 favorites]


Is there no place you can privately make out in public anymore?!

The guy in the second back row of the photo in the Gothamist link even looks like he's just about to perform a nipple tweak.
posted by howfar at 2:31 PM on September 28, 2012


... and its gradual growth into Time Cube.

Shouldn't that be exponential growth?
posted by asperity at 2:43 PM on September 28, 2012


-Sandman, Lucky Lobo and Morlun attended and Liked this show.

More people not using their real names on Facebook.
posted by RobotHero at 3:01 PM on September 28, 2012


I tend to agree with the idea that the audience is largely tourists now.

Is there a Broadway show for which this is not true?
posted by ook at 4:56 PM on September 28, 2012


Ok, this one is just begging to be photoshopped in an obscene fashion.
posted by orme at 6:12 PM on September 28, 2012


My wife and I are tourists: we come to New York to go to Broadway shows: we went to see SPIDERMAN largely because (1) superheroes are cool! (2) all that money! It didn't do it for me - I think being in the stalls would have been better, and the music didn't press my buttons.

However, it was packed with families and excited kids. You could take your photo with Spiderman on the way in. The atmosphere was really fun.

Now BOOK OF MORMON... that was something...
posted by alasdair at 3:20 AM on September 29, 2012


we went to see SPIDERMAN largely because (1) superheroes are cool! (2) all that money! It didn't do it for me

I think this is probably quite a valuable insight into why musical theatre has been tending toward the shit for a long time (apart from the toad-faced plagiarist, of course). A substantial chunk of the people prepared to spend a lot of money on "musical theatre" are selecting it as a spectacle, rather than for the quality of the music and the drama. Which is fair enough, it's their money, but one can hardly be surprised when the actually musical theatre bit gets neglected.
posted by howfar at 4:04 AM on September 29, 2012


In The Lion King they actually let a lion loose into the audience during the third act.

But everyone loved the lion cub in the first act!
posted by ersatz at 4:25 AM on September 29, 2012


And here I was thinking that the RIM execs singing "Keep On Loving You" to their developers was the stupidest thing I would read all week.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 5:04 AM on September 29, 2012


A substantial chunk of the people prepared to spend a lot of money on "musical theatre" are selecting it as a spectacle, rather than for the quality of the music and the drama.

Which explains the failure of Caroline, Or Change, which frankly is one of the best pieces of musical theater created in the past decade.
posted by hippybear at 10:23 AM on September 29, 2012


Yeah, yeah, whatever, snobs. I can see good musical theatre in my provincial English city. I can see SPIDERMAN only on Broadway.
posted by alasdair at 1:42 PM on October 7, 2012


Not sure what's snobbish about agreeing with you that Broadway is now, for many people, a destination for spectacle, not theatre. There's no need to be defensive about your taste, spectacle is perfectly legitimate entertainment.
posted by howfar at 1:22 AM on October 8, 2012


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