Hasta La Ideas

Staying in comic books a bit longer after that last post, while everyone has been talking about the ongoing potential-disaster that is the Spiderman musical, another of his disguised superhero counterparts has been gearing up for a big production at the same time. Batman Live kicks off this summer starting in England and Ireland, then heading to Europe for the fall and closing out in the States in the summer of 2012. A mix of “acrobatics, pyrotechnics, stuntmen, supervillains and screeching Batmobiles on a 100ft-wide, 60ft-deep performance area” it’s much more of a traveling carnival than a high-concept, Julie Taymor production. This week, the first photos of the set design, currently existing only in miniature, have been released. Designed by veteran big-budget concert and theater set designer Es Devlin, it looks to feature a huge collection of large video screens, some sort of ladder system for assorted acrobatics, and a giant inflatable head of The Joker. So even if the whole Spiderman-on-Broadway thing does wind up becoming the largest bomb in theater history, at least now you’ll have a fall back. And hey, you might not even have to travel to go see it.

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