“Spider-Man” Gets Its Fun On

“The new Spider-Man is all for fun, a live-on-stage comic book, pure and simple – precisely what the last version wasn’t, and what its team, on hiatus for several weeks of rewrites and rehearsals, reimagined. It will by no means assume a spot in the pantheon of great Broadway musicals, but it’s now far more than a tortured curiosity.”

Pittsburgh Symphony Musicians Take Pay Cut, Ratify New Contract

“The contract, ratified Saturday night, calls for a 9.7 percent across-the-board cut in musicians’ salary in its first year — one of the biggest wage reductions in the orchestra’s history. Annual base salary will be $100,110, down from $110,764 this season, but musicians paid above scale will give back more. Wages will be frozen the second year of the contract.”

What If You Popped Up Some Arts Journalism?

“This team of roughly 40 arts journalists, working with USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and ensconced in a second-floor office suite at Engine Co. No. 28, a converted firehouse-turned-restaurant on South Figueroa, won’t be battling blazes. They’ll be reporting on one of the largest concentrations of live theater ever to occur in Southern California.”

Spider-Man – Beauty Is Only Skin Deep (Or Something Like That)

“Whatever Ms. Taymor may have had in mind, the end product does no more than aspire to being the live-action counterpart of such big-budget comic-book films as Tim Burton’s “Batman” and Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy.” The problem is that no stage show, even a multimillion-dollar extravaganza, can offer anything remotely as believable-looking as the digitally generated magic.”

Where NY City Opera Went Wrong

“A review of the opera’s financial records reveals yawning, longstanding gaps between its income and its expenses. Though the company has been critically acclaimed, internal documents show its performances now run less than half full on average, and its net assets have plummeted by more than 80 percent in the past seven years to $9.6 million.”