Whipped Cream Difficulties

Ben Sprecher is a theatrical producer. Most of his work has been off-Broadway, but he’s trying to put on a Broadway musical version of “Rebecca”. (I know what you’re thinking, but according to the NYT, this was done in Vienna in 2006, and played well.)

Anyway, Mr. Sprecher estimates that he needs $12 million for this. Mr. Sprecher had an investor – a man named Paul Abrams – who was putting up $4.5 million. That’s a lot of money for one person to invest in a Broadway show. But wait, it gets better!

Reports in August of his sudden death in Britain of malaria — yet no obituaries, no death notices. A representative for the Abrams estate surfaces, a person identifying himself only as “Wexler” who refuses to speak by phone and uses an e-mail address created just last month.

But wait, it gets even better: Mr. Sprecher never met or spoke to Mr. Abrams at all. There are questions as to whether Mr. Abrams ever even existed.

“I’ve never heard of a situation where you didn’t at least meet the person raising 30 percent of your show budget,” said Robert E. Wankel, president of the Shubert Organization, one of the big three Broadway landlords and a six-figure investor in “Rebecca” as well as the owner of its intended theater, the Broadhurst.

Mr. Sprecher is trying to raise money to fill the gap. But if he fails and the musical doesn’t open, he’s on the hook to his other investors.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, bat cave!

Obit watch: Edwin Wilson. Remember Edwin Wilson? Former CIA guy? Convicted of shipping plastic explosives to Libya? Spent 20 years in prison?

A federal judge threw out his conviction in 2003, ruling that prosecutors knowingly used false testimony to undermine his defense.

Yeah. That guy.

Debacle? That seems strong. But I didn’t watch the game. “Debacle” may not be strong enough.

Donuts. Is there anything they can’t do? Well, they can register domains. But Donuts, Inc. has close ties to Demand Media…

Industry watchdogs have long criticized Demand Media as a leading provider of services to spammers and a host to sites that commit “cybersquatting.”…
Garth Bruen of the industry watchdog group KnujOn said Demand Media has not replied to any of the many spam complaints he has submitted to the company.
“They are looking the other way,” he said. “I’ve sent them tons of information. They never respond. They have this one address, legal@enom.com, and you never get a person.”

The current theory on convicted sex offender and fugitive from justice Prakashanand Saraswati seems to be that he’s in India now, having been spirited out of the country by his followers. And the US Marshals don’t have an office in India.

Maybe they could send some BATF guys from Reno to India.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2012 at 7:43 am and is filed under Clippings, Geek, Guns, Law, NFL, Obits, Theatre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.