Unlikely Musicals

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 20th July.

In November this year, the most expensive musical in history might hit Broadway. “Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark” has a reported budget of US$52 million. With music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge, and under the direction of Julie Taylor, the mastermind behind The Lion King stage show and the musical film, Across the Universe, Spidey on stage promises to be a spectacular production, with plans for the webslinger to soar across the New York skyline. How we can see his lips move when singing is yet to be determined.

With so much at stake, the production has been troubled to say the least. Marvel, owner of the Spider-Man character, has already renewed the licence for the show five times. Veteran theatre and film producer, Tony Adams, who initiated the project, suffered a stroke and died in October 2005 just days after signing The Edge. Two of the advertised stars, Evan Rachel Wood (Mary Jane Watson) and Alan Cumming (Green Goblin), have pulled out due to frustrations with the lengthy developmental period. In August 2009, all work on the show, including set building and preparation of the Hilton Theatre, was suspended when the ledger showed that the budget was US$25 million in the red.

If, and that’s a big if, Spider-Man’s curtain rises this year, the show will have to be a mega-success to avoid it being an expensive flop. My spider sense is only mildly tingling.

Spider-Man may seem like a strange choice for a musical, however, there are several productions out there based on unlikely characters and subjects.

American Idiot, based on the album of the same name by Green Day, opened on Broadway in April this year. Essentially the whole album, with a few extra songs from the 21st Century Breakdown record, the one act show centres on a group of disaffected youths struggling to find meaning in their suburban, middle-class lives. Opening to mixed reviews, the first few months of the production have generated strong box office takings. The measure of success on Broadway is longevity so the jury is still out on American Idiot.

The Toxic Avenger was a trashy, B grade film from Troma Entertainment in 1984. Following the adventures of a bullied janitor who is exposed to toxic waste and becomes a superhero, the film became a cult favourite and spawned two sequels and a cartoon series. In 2009, the rock musical opened off-Broadway (this means that the theatre is located in Broadway but has less than 500 seats) with positive reviews and ran for 300 performances.

Evil Dead: The Musical, is based on the 1981 comedy horror film which starred popular B movie star Bruce Campbell and was directed by Sam Raimi, who would go on to helm two more Evil Dead movies, The Gift, A Simple Plan, Drag Me to Hell and all three (non-musical) Spider-Man films. Following the movie’s premise of four college students trapped in an isolated cabin in the woods whilst an evil power possesses them one by one, the musical is reportedly a great laugh and features what is known as the “splash zone”. The audience in the first four rows is encouraged to wear old clothing as the stage blood from the comedic violence tends to fly into the stalls. Evil Dead opened off-Broadway in 2006 and ran for a year. It continues to dismember its cast to the delight of audiences in local productions across the US, Canada and Korea.

A musical based on a man with super spider abilities may seem ridiculous, but I suppose it is no weirder than roller skating trains (Starlight Express), copulating puppets (Avenue Q) or actors (such as myself a few years ago) prancing around in body stockings (Cats).

Published in: on July 20, 2010 at 13:00  Leave a Comment  
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Is it the real thing?

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 13th July 2010.

A major improvement has been made to the world’s biggest selling soft drink. That’s right, Coca-Cola have added grip to their 450ml PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles. In what should receive the award for most dubious product improvement of the year, the manufacturers of Coke are labelling the new container “easy to hold”. That’s strange. I haven’t heard of anyone having problems holding a bottle of Coke. Do they realise that the container is made of plastic and won’t shatter when you drop it anyway? Perhaps they should be adding grip to their glass bottles? To be fair, Coke are claiming that the new bottle design uses 5% less PET than the previous one. OK, this may be an environmentally sound improvement I guess, but I don’t suppose that this new bottle will come with a small price reduction either. Despite its domination and success worldwide, the history of Coca-Cola is littered with several controversies and odd marketing decisions, much like the new grippy bottle. Created in 1886 by John Pemberton, a pharmacist in Columbus, Georgia, Coca-Cola had a rough start with a little legal turmoil after the creator sold his formula twice, the second sale to fund his morphine addiction. Initially containing cocaine (this was ceased in 1904), Coke is now manufactured with coca leaves from which cocaine has already been extracted (for medicinal purposes only of course). In 1985, New Coke was unleashed upon the US and Canada. With a new sweeter formula, it was developed to improve Coca-Cola’s market share in the US, where a fierce battle was being fought against Pepsi. Despite market research which showed that the majority of taste testers preferred the new formula, Coke did not anticipate the backlash it would receive, especially from the company’s home of Atlanta, Georgia, buoyed by nostalgia for what was considered an American icon. Less than twelve weeks later, in a complete back-flip, Coca-Cola Classic was back on the shelves, alongside New Coke, now known as Coca-Cola 2. By 2002, New Coke, as a separate product, was no more. Conspiracy theorists believe that the New Coke controversy was manufactured to allow Classic Coke to be brought back in the US with the cheaper (and much more fattening) high fructose corn syrup, rather than cane sugar, as its principal ingredient. Call in Fox Mulder. Not all of Coco-Cola’s ideas have involved Coke itself. Tab was a diet cola that was developed by Coca-Cola in 1963. The emergence of Diet Coke in 1982 saw Tab sales decline and it disappeared in Australia sometime in the late nineties. In 1993, Tab Clear was released in Australia. Clear cola, a fad around that time with several different brands, failed as a marketing gimmick and less than a year later had disappeared from shelves. Perhaps they forgot that the colour of the beverage itself was somewhat irrelevant considering Tab was mostly sold in cans. In 2008, Australian actress Kerry Armstrong was hired to front an advertising campaign “mythbusting” the notion that Coke was bad for you. I would suggest that an actress who makes a living saying someone else’s lines would not be the person Australians go to for nutritional advice. A year later, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ruled that the ads were misleading. Despite these hiccups, Coca-Cola remains a dominant brand in the Australian beverage marketplace, expanding their portfolio to include beer, water, fruit juice, coffee and sports drinks. So if you go for “the real thing”, “just for the taste of it”, to “add life”, I also suggest you also “get a grip”.

Published in: on July 18, 2010 at 11:20  Leave a Comment  
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Get your face in space

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 6th July 2010.

After nearly thirty years of service, NASA has announced that the iconic space shuttle will be retired in 2011. With only 2 missions left to fly, Australians have the opportunity to have their picture carried aboard one of these historic flights.

The first space shuttle flight took place on 12th April, 1981 with the inaugural orbital flight of the Columbia. Launching from the Kennedy Space Centre on Merritt Island in Florida, the space shuttle program has remained the cornerstone of NASA’s activities from the eighties until now. Over 131 successful launches, the shuttle has delivered many significant payloads into space, including the Hubble Telescope, the Galileo Orbiter (which successfully studied Jupiter), the Magellan Probe (which explored Venus), Spacelab and parts of the International Space Station.

Of course, there were actually 132 launches. The Challenger disaster on 28th January 1986 saw the shuttle explode after launch, killing all seven astronauts. And in 2003, Columbia broke apart during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, but technically it still counts as a successful launch.

Despite an annual budget of US$17.6 billion, the aging technology of the space shuttle has resulted in its impending retirement, making way for the new Orion manned spacecraft, also known as Project Constellation.

 The “Face in Space” project was originally offered to NASA employees only but has since been opened to the public. By uploading your image and name to the NASA website, and selecting which mission you wish to be “aboard”, your digital information will be carried on the Space Shuttle Endeavour or Discovery as they embark upon their final missions.

Conspiracy theorists can also relax. Those of us a little concerned about sending the US Government our names and photos can rest assured that NASA has promised to delete all of the participants’ information upon landing.

Once your noggin has been to space and back, you can then return to the NASA website and print out a certificate signed by the Mission Commander.

OK, the prospect of some zeroes and ones which digitally represent your face going up into orbit may not seem all that exciting but let’s face it, most of us have got our photos in cyberspace, so why not venture to the final frontier and send your dial into outer space? Plus, it’s free.

Your only other option to get your face into space will be flying with Virgin Galactic, who will start sub-orbital tourism flights in 2011. At US$200,0000 per person (hand luggage only), you could be joining the 340 astro-tourists who have already signed on and paid their US$20,000 deposit.

If you’re keen to participate in “Face in Space”, act quickly, because Mission STS-133 (Space Transportation System) launches on 1st November this year and the final space shuttle flight, Mission STS-134, is planned for Australia Day 2011.

http://faceinspace.nasa.gov

Published in: on July 6, 2010 at 07:17  Leave a Comment  
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