FOURTH accident at the Broadway show Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark

[joebuck20]

@Simplicio

I imagine there’s a pretty small number of Cirque actors who can also sing at the level people are used to seeing in Broadway shows. No doubt they can use some “singing doubles” but I think it would be noticable if the whole show was done like that.

They could use the Cirque performers just for the stunts. From what I’ve read they have several different people (including the guy who was injured), aside from the main star Reeve Carney, playing Spidey and doing the stunts in the suit.

[Marley23]

Word now is the show is supposed to resume Wednesday night.

@billfish678

Apparently the folks there don’t understand safety then. Its pretty rare to NOT have backup safety procedures when safety is an actual concern.

But there may be other things they can do; unspecified ‘other measures’ are being taken. The accident is being blamed on human error rather than, say, broken equipment, but there’s no word on what the error was. I saw one story suggesting Spider-Man was supposed to swing down after Mary Jane rather than dive. On the other hand this story speculates Tierney’s harness was accidentally not hooked up to anything. If you’ve seen the video, you can see the rope does not slow his fall.

Tierney, who appeared in the national tour of “Moving Out” and in “Dirty Dancing” in Toronto, is the show’s main aerialist and performs stunts for the roles of Spider-Man and the villains Meeks and Kraven the Hunter. The castmate who spoke on condition of anonymity said the cable to Tierney’s harness snapped. But one special-effects expert raised the possibility that the rope was not hooked up securely.

Scott Fisher, president of Fisher Technical Services Inc. of in Las Vegas, which builds equipment for aerial stunts for the show, said the rope was supposed to be clipped to the stage at one end and the performer’s back at the other.

“The stage crew would have been responsible for making the connection for hooking him up,” Fisher said. “The actor is responsible for making the final check that he’s good to go. It’s sort of like packing your own parachute.”

He said the script called for the stuntman to lurch forward at the end of a ramp as if leaping to Mary Jane’s rescue. “He runs and stops and freezes in a position that you wouldn’t normally be able to hold unless you had a little support from behind him,” Fisher said. “If that’s not hooked up and he leans forward, he’s going to fall forward.”

Fisher said the rope was not part of his company’s onstage flight systems. But he said it was unlikely to have snapped: It is a 10,000-pound line.

@Simplicio

I imagine there’s a pretty small number of Cirque actors who can also sing at the level people are used to seeing in Broadway shows. No doubt they can use some “singing doubles” but I think it would be noticable if the whole show was done like that.

There’s only one Spider-Man singer, but there are around eight different guys who perform some of his students. The guy who got hurt Monday is one of those stunt performers.

[Freudian_Slit]

@Marley23

There’s only one Spider-Man singer, but there are around eight different guys who perform some of his students. The guy who got hurt Monday is one of those stunt performers.

How does that work, then? Do the stuntmen have any spoken lines, or do they just do the stunts silently?

[Marley23]

@Freudian_Slit

How does that work, then? Do the stuntmen have any spoken lines, or do they just do the stunts silently?

I don’t know if any lines are sung or spoken when they work. If there are, I’m guessing the main Spider-Man (Carney) sings or speaks his lines from offstage while these guys do their thing onstage. Carney does some of his character’s stunts, just not all of them. The guy who got injured Monday does some of Spider-Man’s students and also plays some other roles.

[Marley23]

A little bit more about what happened:

Mr. Tierney lost his footing and toppled off the platform. A person involved with the production said that Mr. Tierney had been properly attached to a tether, but that the tether was not affixed correctly to the equipment that was supposed to hold him in place.

The actor’s injuries include broken ribs and internal bleeding. A fall like that makes you worry about spinal injury, but so far they haven’t said he has one.

[aceplace57]

I can only imagine the scene in the E.R. with a patient in a full Spider Man Costume. I bet it gave the staff something to gossip about afterward.

I doubt the EMT’s removed it. They usually let the E.R. remove clothing to minimize any movement.

[Alessan]

It’s New York. They’ve seen stranger.

[Zebra]

Ave Q, which seems to be a very inexpensive and simple show, does not tour. The opened a second Ave Q in Vegas.
Spiderman could do something like that. It seems more like a Vegas spectacular than London West End show.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Zebra

Ave Q, which seems to be a very inexpensive and simple show, does not tour.

Yes it does. It’s touring right now in fact.

http://www.avenueqontour.com/

[JThunder]

@aceplace57

I can only imagine the scene in the E.R. with a patient in a full Spider Man Costume. I bet it gave the staff something to gossip about afterward.

I doubt the EMT’s removed it. They usually let the E.R. remove clothing to minimize any movement.

So much for Pete’s secret identity.

[Hampshire]

@aceplace57

The big problem with stunts in theater is you have to do it night after night. Sometimes twice a day for matinees. No matter how brave or skilled you are that’s pushing your luck too far.

You mean like all the Cirque Du Soleil shows that run all over the country day after day?

[joebuck20]

@Freudian_Slit

How does that work, then? Do the stuntmen have any spoken lines, or do they just do the stunts silently?

If they do have any lines, I imagine they can just pipe them in from offstage. After all they’re in the full suit and mask, so it’s not like you can see their lips moving.

[HenryGale]

Nthing all the comments about Cirque. I get that Turn off the Dark is technically complex, and it requires OMGDANGEROUSSTUNTWORK from the performers, but I can’t imagine that it’s THAT much more complex or dangerous than KA. Someone is doing something wrong.

[Cheesesteak]

Spiderman is not Cirque. They can’t simply subordinate everything else about the show to focus on the acrobatics. The show is not about acrobatics, the acrobatics is there to support the telling of the musical story.

Take this accident, there is nothing interesting about the acrobatics here, he was simply supposed to appear to jump off the bridge. That’s it. They couldn’t stage it so he jumped onto a hidden crash pad, they had to string him up on a cable and dangle him 30 feet above the orchestra.

This is what happens when you have an unlimited budget and a egomaniac like Julie Taymor in charge.

I hope this thing dies a miserable death before one of the actors does. Live theater is not the movies, don’t try to compete with them.

[blondebear]

The perfect companion piece for this thread: This American Life’s “Fiasco: Opening Night”.

[aceplace57]

The Feds are interested in this too.

In early November, the New York State DOL called in federal authorities to help in its investigation, OSHA spokesman John Chavez tells PopEater. OSHA, which is part of the United States Department of Labor, “has a current open and ongoing inspection of the Spider-Man production,” he says.

The New York State DOL asked OSHA to join in the investigation “because of some of the initial incidents that happened on the set,” he said.

Federal OSHA normally doesn’t shut down a workplace unless it declares there is immediate danger to workers or an immediate life-threatening situation, says Chavez. “That would require a court order.”

On the other hand, the New York State Department of Labor has the power to shut down a show if it is too dangerous for workers, he says.

http://www.popeater.com/2010/12/22/spider-man-musical-safety-measures/

[Capitaine_Zombie]

Spiderman: Turn off the lights.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

The repetitive stress injuries from ‘The Lion King’ completely drained the medical insurance plan for Canadian Actors’ Equity. Dancing with all that heavy stuff on took its toll on everyone’s body. Julie Taymor needs to do her own stunts, and if she can’t do them safely, then neither do the actors.

Or she can go back to working with puppets.

[MsWhatsit]

Gawker just published a really scathing review.

They shouldn’t be charging money for tickets at this point. This thing is baaaad, guys. Really, really bad. And before you say it, this is not me trashing some ambitious can-do theater folks simply for their ambition. These are people spending tens of millions of dollars — you could do ten good, expensive shows with the money they’re spending — to create a commercial product that’s so cynical it seems to operate under the assumption that a good story is unnecessary so long as there’s neat-o flying. And then they’re charging you $140 a seat.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@MsWhatsit

Gawker just published a really scathing review.

I love one of the comments, it ends with this:

It’s like kabuki theater threw up on the Muppets.