Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has cancelled tonight's performance. They'd already axed the matinee but the evening performance is off (as may be others) while they work out safety issues. Observing it all here from the cheap seats, there are two things I'm kinda curious about...
The first question gets us back to math. Last week when there were eight performances, the show grossed $1,036,133. That's close to capacity so let's round it down to a million, which would mean that each performance grosses $125,000. They offered refunds and exchanges for Monday night's performance since it wasn't completed and they've now cancelled two more performances...so that's $375,000 foregone right there. I think a few other performances were cancelled before that. How much of that does the insurance company cover and at what point do they stop doing that?
The other is whether the delay is to make sure they fix the one moment in the show that injured actor-stuntguy Christopher Tierney on Monday night...or if they're going through the entire show, through every stunt and rigging and special effect to verify that it's safe or safer. And if the answer is it's the latter, how come they didn't do all that before they started performances?
Protests within the acting community are mounting and a lot of folks are asking that very question. So I'm guessing that they're checking everything out. Because there's a very good chance that if one more actor gets hurt, this show is history.
There's a growing controversy about that first couple that lost out on Monday's Million Dollar Money Drop. As I noted here, I thought the last question put to them — the one where they lost what little money they had left — had some questionable, perhaps misleading phrasing. Now, a lot of folks are saying they were cheated on an earlier question. Here are the details.
This may or may not get addressed. On game shows, they always have a rule book and it would surely cover this contingency. Contestants always sign some sort of release that says that in the case of a dispute, they agree to let it be handled the way the rule book dictates. This is because losing contestants often run out and hire lawyers when they think they shouldn't have lost. Usually, the rules say that the sole remedy for a mistake is to bring the contestant(s) back to play the game again...but even that's only if the error might have altered the outcome of the game.
Did it here? On The Million Dollar Money Drop, contestants must wager all the money they have on the final question. This couple did and lost. So the show might simply take the position that even if they'd won on the disputed question, they still would have lost everything on the final one and their "winnings" would still have been zero. And then there's the other point: There may not be any more episodes of The Million Dollar Money Drop. The first batch of shows has been taped and Fox hasn't decided yet if they want more.
The show might decide to pay the couple some money out of good will or to nip any bad publicity. If more episodes are ordered, they might bring them back on to play again just to clear the air. That's about all I imagine happening.
Back in this post, we told you about a rare interview that Doris Day had given on a New York radio show. If you'd like to hear it, it's available online on this page. It runs a little more than an hour.
Monday night, an actor (some reports call him a stuntman) was seriously injured during the performance of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark on Broadway. Some reports say he fell 8-10 feet. Others give other numbers and the highest I've seen is 26. Whatever it was, it was nasty. I said here that the New York State Department of Labor and Actors' Equity would now have to get involved and sure enough, Tuesday morning they both did. This website seems to have the most up-to-date info.
No performance was scheduled for Tuesday evening. The matinee today was cancelled and I gather that for a brief time this morn, there seemed to be some concern or belief around that one or both of those agencies would insist that all performances be suspended...but it's all scheduled to resume tomorrow evening.
A lot of folks have to be asking themselves the musical question, "What happens if there's another accident?" The union has to balance two conflicting interests. On the one hand, they want to make sure that their members are protected; that producers understand that they must take every safety precaution or their show could be shut down. On the other hand, if they close down the show, they put a lot of actors out of work...and unions aren't supposed to cost their members work. There are also statements all over the web regarding OSHA and the New York State Department of Labor, both of which have to be pondering and debating what they'll do if more people get hurt.
But you know who we're not hearing a word from or about? The entity which may ultimately have the final say on whether this show runs, closes, cuts back on stunts, whatever. It's the insurance company...and there may be more than one involved. A Broadway show is insured in case Acts of God or health issues impact its earning power or even force it to close, and there's also liability insurance for anyone who is injured. You may recall that a key point of the movie All That Jazz was that Roy Scheider's character, who was directing a Broadway show, had a heart attack...and the producers of his show learned that because of the insurance money, they might show a profit by closing the production.
I'm not saying the Spider-Man musical might close for that reason. Ultimately, that will come down to how much it's taking in and how much it's putting out. But factored into that math now is what insurance is costing and what the insurance firm is willing to cover. A friend of mine who was once directing a movie was told by the insurers that if he insisted on filming a certain scene they deemed dangerous, his insurance would be cancelled...so he didn't (couldn't) film the scene. The alternative was that they could bring in another firm which would charge ten times as much. Risking lives can get expensive.
December 21, 2010
