I don't get why Julie Taymour is re-inventing the wheel when it comes to the stunts. Cirque de Soleil has been doing this kind of stuff for years, with trained professionals. According to Playbill.com, the Department of Labor is visiting the theatre this afternoon to re-visit the production. Actor's Equity is also involved. Hope Christopher Tierney is OK :(

From what I've read, that production has had problems from the start. C'mon, guys, it's Spiderman, not the holy grail, get over yourselves.

My point is that there are very stringent rules and guidelines dealing with "flying" actors.

I am not sure if flying was in this scene but there is usually redundancy upon redundancy in protecting actors from falls. Even in Wicked, I noticed that, in "defying gravity," they has the actor playing Elphaba harnessed and strapped in when she was basically only riding a lift or something straight up and not going anywhere.

The Dept. of Labor will want to see their fall protection plan, and whether it was adhered to.

This show is cursed.

I know that commercial theater is desperately trying to catch up with film in terms of sensory stimulation, flashiness, and overall spectacle - and this show seems to be the perfect case study in why we should just let theater be theater. You can't do with human beings at human scale what you can do with CGI and post-production and ADR - nor should you. There is a living, organic sense of shared humanity in a theatre, where actors share your dimensions, breathe your air, abide by the logic of the same ground you're standing on. The best theater tells a story and engages your emotions in spite of the multi-million-dollar investments... not because of them. By all indications, this show is pompous, hollow trash, and it's sad that real people are being grievously injured because of Taymor's hubris. I hope this show is the end of her.

Getting off the soapbox now...

Favorited and Liked, mykescipark! You've nailed the problem perfectly.

Oh, and a great comment from the link: "Spiderman would be better off restricting his activities to The Web." :)