The FUN HOME musical is coming to the Public Theater this fall

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TweetWe’ve been following the development a musical based on Alison Bechdel’s classic comics memoir Fun Home for a while, and nowNew York’s prestigious Public Theater has announced its fall schedule and the show will have it’s world premiere in October. A lot less drama than Spider-Man, eh? Here’s the logline: World Premiere Musical FUN HOME [...]

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer Go “Live” at Bard College

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TweetThe Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in Red Hook, New York, hosted “An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer” on the 6th of April, an event packed with poetry, prose, and musical performance numbers from Gaiman and Palmer alike, frequently in combination. Here are some photos and a few choice [...]

Review: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…It’s Superman

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Tweet I saw the final night of the ENCORE! concert staging of the Adams/Strouse Superman musical last night and I truly wish I had seen it earlier so I could have written about it earlier and told everyone to go see it because it was a DELIGHT! But the theater was jammed so I guess [...]

It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman hits the stage this week

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Theater fans and Superman fans have some fun in store for them this week when the Encore production of It’s a Bird, It’s Plane…It’s Superman hits the stage with Edward Watts as Clark/Superman, Jenny Power as Lois Lane and Alli Mauzey as Sydney Carlton. Originally produced in 1966 with music and lyrics by Charles Strause and Lee Adams and book by David Newman and Robert Benton, it’s definitely a retro view of Superman — he’s dating Lois for one thing — but if you like the most iconic view of the Man of Steel, this fits the bill. Plus – show tunes.

Carousel brings comics and their creators to the stage

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About four times a year, noted cartoonist Robert Sikoryak (Masterpiece Comics) hosts Carousel: Cartoon Slide Shows and Other Projected Pictures. This is an event where artists and writers present their comics though a slide show while vocalizing the dialogue and narrative, sometimes incorporating music and sound design. For those in attendance, the resulting experience comes closer to watching a play than a movie or an animation. Sikoryak describes it as “a cross-pollination of theater and comics.”

Superman is back on stage in “It’s a Bird” revival

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One of the most colorful ephemera of Superman lore is his stage appearance in the show “It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman!” a musical with book by David Newman and Robert Benton, and music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adam (That’s the guys behind Bye Bye Bride and Applause.) The show is being revived for a seven performance run at New York City Center from March 20 through 24. Tickets can be purchased here.

King Kong is banging on the Spider-Man musical’s door

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Tweet Will the saga of Spider-Man The Musical ever end—or at least break even?? A piece on how a proposed King Kong musical is eyeing Spider-Man’s theater reveals some of the numbers behind Spidey’s fabled, tangled past. Lawsuits have been settled and injuries abated—the show even set a record for the biggest one-week take ever [...]

NYCC: IDW Announce Kill Shakespeare: The Tide of Blood

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TweetFresh press release! Crisp and tender. IDW have announced that writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery will return to their acclaimed Kill Shakespeare series with a new five-issue miniseries debuting in February. Andy Belanger will return as artist on the miniseries, which follows up from the previous two books in the series.

SDCC 12: Diamond offers incentives for new stores

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TweetRealizing that getting new stores out there is crucial to growing the comics business. Diamond has announced a couple of new programs to help get new stores up and running by softening the financial blow of assembling opening inventory. New business director Chris Powell announced these at todays Diamond retailer lunch. One program is allows [...]

SDCC 12: Diamond offers incentives for new stores

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TweetRealizing that getting new stores out there is crucial to growing the comics business. Diamond has announced a couple of new programs to help get new stores up and running by softening the financial blow of assembling opening inventory. New business director Chris Powell announced these at todays Diamond retailer lunch. One program is allows [...]

PREMIERE: Jim Lee and Geoff Johns talk about the Batman Arena Show

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We’ve written about the BATMAN LIVE stage show here a few times…Since October, it’s toured throughout Europe, leaving audiences gasping at the stunts, spectacle and just plain weirdness of a live action show about Batman. The BATMAN LIVE show is the result of a lot of work: four years of concepting and rehearsals. The 42-person cast includes Batman, Robin, Alfred and a rogues gallery including The Joker, Catwoman, The Riddler, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and The Penguin. Based on what we’ve seen, it’s quite the spectacle.

Well, now the show is coming to the Western Hemisphere for a two-year tout, with a September 5 premiere in Anaheim. And here’s a BRAND NEW video featuring Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and Allan Heinberg (who wrote the book) talking about how the show brings Batman to life and their own thoughts on the production.

HOAX: Layman, IDW, and Topps team on Mars Attacks musical

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Thrill to the “wish” song, “I Want to Kill Your Dog” and the tender romantic ballad “Nik nik nik nik!” as MARS ATTACKS, the gory card set from the ’60s, becomes what it always needed to be: a Broadway musical with a book by…John Layman! It’s based on the story of the MARS ATTACKS miniseries Layman wrote for IDW, MARS ATTACKS: 21st CENTURY SLAUGHTER, which is coming out this summer.

Wow. Can this plucky bunch of kids succeed where Bono, Edge, and Taymor failed? Or is this press release just misdated from Sunday, April 1st?

Spider-Man musical claims another victim

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After months of peaceful performances, this was a rocky week for the Spider-Man musical. On Tuesday original director Julie Taymor sued over royalties and on Wednesday there was yet another injury to the cast. Back-up Spidey Matthew James Thomas, who plays the title role at matinees Wednesday and Saturday, was injured backstage while racing from one scene to another. The injury required a 10-minute pause in the musical, a trip to the hospital, and stitches for Thomas.

Taymor to Spidey producers: Turn on the lawsuit

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Oh yeah, it’s on.

After being ousted from the directing chair of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the troubled Broadway show about the webslinger, director Julie Taymor kept a tight smile at the opening of the show. However, now the gloves are off and she’s suing the producers over her creative rights and unpaid royalties.

SDCC11: Even Cirque du Soleil is coming to Comic-Con

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Okay its official — EVERYONE is coming to Comic-Con and putting on a show. If you thought it was already a three-ring circus, you were only half right Now it’s a three-ring 3D circus.

Cirque du Soliel the internationally renowned brand-name for acrobatics, swinging by your hair, juggling and other wonderment, will be bringing the finale of its Kâ show to Comic-con in a staging at Petco Park on Friday Night, which will be set against a 3D projections.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa talks about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

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Now that the drama had ended, and the show has gone on, some of the folks associated with the epic Spider-Man musical revamp are talking about their roles in it. Playwright/comics scribe Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa pens his memoirs of how he came to help rewrite the show and it’s quite sunny in tone, but also gives his side of it for the first time: