There is a new musical playing in New York called Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark, based on the popular comic book character Spiderman.
A musical is a type of play performed live onstage, but instead of telling the story by speaking, the actors sing. The music for Spiderman was written by Bono and The Edge from the band U2.
This musical hasn’t actually officially opened yet, but it has already received a lot of attention and not because it’s a really good musical. Spiderman has received so much attention because many actors have been hurt during the performances. There have been broken limbs, cracked bones and internal bleeding whenever an actor falls from the rafters.
But why would an actor be up in the rafters if Spiderman is a stage musical? Well, this show was meant to be very different from other musicals. The main difference is that it has many tricks and stunts performed by actors up in the air. They are hoisted up to the rafters on cables. But some of the stunts are so complicated that the cables the actors are swinging from become tangled, and then the person falls.
Because of all the accidents, many people have already bought tickets to see it, even though the musical doesn’t officially open until March 15. With all the actors getting hurt, the whole show has become kind of a joke.
But the ticket prices are no joke. Tickets range from $80 to $200, because making the show has been so expensive (not to mention the government fined the producers a lot of money when they found out how many accidents there had been).
Despite the high ticket prices, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark made over a million dollars in just one week of preview shows.
Hopefully the Spiderman musical will keep selling tickets, but will also keep its actors safe once the show officially opens on March 15.
Related Link
Here is the official Spiderman: Turn off the Dark website.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
When people think of Spiderman, they usually don’t think of singing and dancing. As a result, people who go to see the Spiderman musical will not quite know what to expect. Can your expectations influence your experience? How do expectations affect how we feel?
Reading Prompt
How does your knowledge of comics, cartoons, movies, and superheroes help you understand today’s article?
Primary & Junior
Extend understanding of texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6)
Grammar Feature: Verb Tense – Future Perfect
Action words (verbs) are written differently depending on the time of the action, this is called tense. One verb tense is called future perfect. The future perfect verb tense tells about something that will be finished or completed by an exact time. For example,
“Hopefully the Spiderman musical will keep selling tickets, but will also keep its actors safe once the show officially opens on March 15.”
The verbs “will” and “keep” are in the future perfect tense because they are to be achieved by the exact day of March 15.
Write verbs on the blanks below in order to complete these sentences written in the future perfect tense.
Desdemona ______________________ eaten her dinner by six o’clock.
Shaquille and Roby _______________________ their new teacher.
Konny and Alexis _______________________ their coats with them.
Mr. Truport ________________________ the answer!
