Suddenly, after all these years of trying to kill it, I’m interested in the resilient “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” again.
Why?
Because Alice Cooper is in negotiations to play the Green Goblin.
I kid you not.
The $85 million musical, which hasn’t returned one penny to its investors — including The Edge, an idiot for putting his own money in the show — is trying to hang on by casting a washed-up rock star to keep itself going through the dead months of January and February.
It won’t work — but what a great idea!
Alice Cooper. The Godfather of Shock Rock. A singer who used to have people’s heads chopped off in his act is going to join a show in which a chorus kid had his foot chopped off.
This is, as my friend Scott Rudin likes to say, genius!
The idea of casting Cooper comes, of course, from the show’s producer, Michael Cohl. He’s a billionaire rock ’n’ roll presenter who got roped into the fiasco of “Spider-Man” by his friend, Bono.
Cohl’s a tenacious guy and has kept this disaster going despite cast injuries, bad reviews, lawsuits and the uncomfortable fact that it is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every week.
His plan, I’m told, is to try to “franchise” the show around the world to stadiums and arenas that seat thousands of people. He’ll tell them that it comes directly from Broadway, where — despite my best efforts — it’s been running for three years.
Alice Cooper, he hopes, will keep the show going while he makes those deals.
And he’s willing to pay Cooper a nice chunk of change: $150,000 a week.
(Alice, if you’re reading this, have Cohl throw in a $2.5 million life insurance policy, since it’s entirely possible that you might get killed in the course of performing the show.)
Will Cohl’s scheme work?
Well, Dubai, Shanghai, Osaka — I’m here to tell you that “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” is a dud. You’re better off with a revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
That said, Alice Cooper in a Broadway show is headline-grabbing. And I have a hunch he’ll be lots of fun in the role.
It’s a stunt, but a good one, and I’m all for it. I’ll be there at his first preview to see if he gets killed.
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Speaking of my friend Michael Cohl, he’s just signed on as a producer of “A Night With Janis Joplin,” now in previews at the Lyceum. I’m not sure he can make up his losses on “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” ($85 million and counting!), but, for the first time in his theater-producing career, he might find himself associated with something that’s not a disaster.
I hear Mary Bridget Davies, who plays Joplin, is terrific. The show is weak, but she carries it to the finish line and is likely to walk away with some very nice reviews.
***
Harvey Fierstein has a new Broadway play in the works about a bunch of straight men who get together and dress up as women. (Sounds like a meeting of the New York Drama Critics Circle in 1937!) John Cullum has signed on, and I hear Frank Langella is weighing an offer.
I’ll keep you girls posted!