March 13, 2024 • 64 mins
Very Special Episodes is a new podcast hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English. Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.
In 2011, after many delays, one of the most anticipated musicals in theater history finally opened on Broadway. The show was Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The powerhouse creative team included an up-and-coming playwright, a MacArthur Genius, and Bono. But its downfall would be long and treacherous. Here's the story of what went wrong — and why we're still pushing for a revival.
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Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English
Written by Joe Kinosian
Produced by Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs
Additional Editing by Emily Marinoff
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Story Editors are Josh Fisher and Marisa Brown
Research and Fact-Checking by Austin Thompson and Joe Kinosian
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Originals. This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In twenty eleven, after many delays, one of the most
publicized musicals in all of theater history finally opened on Broadway.
It had a brand, it had tons of buzz, and
it elicited some strong reactions. It was quite the talk
(00:43):
of the town.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
There were bugs.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The show kept stopping. I mean, the hubbub about the
show was everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
The new actor injury or technical malfunction every week was
so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The musical was Spider Man Turn Off the Dark, and
for a show that aimed to rise above all of
Broadway musicals in terms of scale and ambition, its downfall
would turn out to be long and treacherous.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
My husband and I were in the audience tonight Chris
Tierney fell and it was awful.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
We honestly thought we'd watched someone die on stage. That
fall didn't just traumatize the audience, it echoed a warning.
The ambition of Spider Man Turn Off the Dark was
swinging dangerously close to the edge. Welcome to very special
(01:44):
episodes and I heeart original podcast. I'm your host Danish
Schwartz and this is Spider Man Turn Up the Pod.
I am so excited about this episode. This has been
a subject that has actually been my obsession for a
(02:04):
very long time. Jason, I feel like you know that
this is the subject that I like bring up in
conversation that has just like warped my brain in a
way that has altered my physical chemistry permanently. I'm talking,
of course, about the Spider Man Turn Off the Dark Musical,
a musical I never saw, but that astounds me and
delights me to this very day, nonetheless.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
And not just you. We used a quote from this
episode in our trailer a couple months ago, and I
think more than any other potential episode that people heard about,
this is the one we get the most inquiries about
when is the Spider Man? And then they often have
some story. Sometimes it's not even a good story, like
(02:47):
oh I almost went. I knew someone who went, like
people just want to be associated with this musical, and
I'm so excited we get to tell this story today.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
My best friend did see it on Broadway, and she
went to one of those magical performances where something went wrong,
and so she has a great story about how, during
like one of the swinging scenes, the actor who played
Spider Man, Reeve Carney was suspended for like a full
ten minutes, just above the audience, like the house lights
went on, and this poor guy had to just stay
(03:19):
there and he was sort of still doing like pew
pew like sort of still staying in character. Like ten
minutes is a long time.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh heck were you guys? Are both theater kids correct?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, is that not obvious?
Speaker 5 (03:31):
I was the star of the fifth grade play, but
that was the peak of my acting career.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Can you imagine either one of you standing on stage
for ten minutes and you have nothing to do, nothing,
You're just standing there.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Quiet, suspended above the audience in character.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Full minute unbelievable with lots of danger. So I never
got to see this show. I was living in the
New York area during the entire run. I regret it immentally.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now I can't believe you didn't see I'm so jealous.
I was too young, I did not live in New York,
and I did not have disposable income. That's my excuse.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, I wanted to see it too. I also really
would love to if I could. And this is like
an imaginary thing, but you know, the choreographer Bob fosse
All that jazz. That guy, right, I would love to
be able to talk to him about this show, you know, like, hey,
well after you were gone, they did Spider Man. I
just like see him ask questions.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I would love to see Stephen Sondheim's face during a
production of this show. For anyone who has not gotten
to see the show, and obviously it's no longer running
so you can't. You can go to YouTube and look up.
I hope it's still up. So I'm saying this, but
there is a David Letterman performance of the Broadway show
of them singing a song called a Freak like Me
(04:43):
Needs Company, and you can see David Letterman's soul leave
his body during the performance. Over the course of the performance,
you can track it. You see the life draining from
his eyes.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Speaking your souls leaving their body. Any story for me
that involves the youtubo's guitarist, the Edge, walking out of
a room and then walking back into a dead man,
I'm just like tell me this story.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Yeah, I didn't expect deaths, and I knew there were injuries, but.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
This is all surprised. The story dispacked with surprise.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
All right, why don't we get into this one? And
we will catch up on the other side.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
As with many recent Broadway shows, the jumping off place
for the Spider Man Musical was a movie, specifically the
two thousand and two Toby McGuire Spider Man Film, which
not only got solid reviews but raked in over eight
hundred million dollars. With Disney properties like Beauty and the
(05:37):
Beast and The Lion King leaping successfully from the screen
to Broadway, Marvel was keen to map a similar course
for Spidey's newly invigorated brand. Marvel placed spider Man's Broadway
future in the hands of charismatic producer Tony Adams and
(05:59):
his business partner, entertainment lawyer David Garfinkel. The two convinced
no less than Bono and The Edge of U two
to compose the songs for the as yet unwritten show.
For the director, Bono and the Edge pushed to bring
on Julie Taymour, whose production of The Lion King became
(06:23):
the most profitable musical of all time, grossing eight point
two billion dollars worldwide. Julie Taymour was universally hailed as
an uncompromising visionary, and her clout had now earned her
creative control over the forthcoming Spider Man musical. To that end,
(06:46):
Taymoor would not only direct, but co write the script
or in theater, lingo the book. In two thousand and five,
the call went out for prospective writing collaborators to submit
a sample scene. Playwright and TV writer Glenn Berger was
one of many who submit it, but instead of a scene,
(07:09):
he wrote a rambling conceptual treatise. It read, as he
tells it, like he was on drugs, but good drugs.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Maybe it wasn't the most exquisitely structured piece of writing
I've ever done, but it was enough for me to
get an interview, and by the ending of the interview
it became clear that the thing that they actually wanted
was a scene. So I said, oh, yeah, absolutely, a scene.
Great idea. So I said, I'll have it to you
(07:40):
tomorrow morning, and I sped back home upstate and spent
the night writing a scene. And actually I knew that
next morning at dawn birds or twittering, and I press send,
and I kind of knew that I nailed it, actually,
And so it wasn't surprising when later that afternoon Julie
called me and said, yeah, yeah, you Got It.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Eager to get started, Berger relocated to New York City. Meanwhile,
producer and show cheerleader Tony Adams was hammering out the
official deal. On October twentieth, though, tragedy struck. Adams had
just gotten Bono's and Taymor's signatures on the contract and
(08:21):
went to secure the Edges. The Edge left the room
to get a pen, and when he came back, Adams
was slumped over the table. He'd suffered a stroke. Two
days later, he was dead. The show was now in
the hands of Adam's partner, David Garfinkel. While Garfinkel was
(08:43):
extremely well connected in showbiz circles, he had never before
produced a play or musical. Nevertheless, a reading was planned
for mid two thousand and seven. Bono and The Edge
started writing songs, leaning heavily on their distinctive rock style,
while also incorporating faux classical vocal harmonies and typical musical
(09:08):
theater razzle dazzle. Glen Berger worked on the book, building
dialogue out of the treatment he and Taymor had created.
The first act of the show was to be Your
Classic Origin Story, as laid out in the comic book,
and two thousand and two film Bullied teenager Peter Parker
(09:29):
gets bitten by a genetically modified Spider, is sheathed in
the iconic form fitting red suit, and becomes the titular superstar,
great power, great responsibility, you know the deal. However, the
intention was to marry that well known tale with Taymoor's
(09:49):
many bold theatrical new ideas. One of these editions was
a geek chorus, a pun on the ancient theatrical device
of a Greek chorus. Spider Man's geek chorus consists of
of four talkative nerds who would move the action along
(10:11):
by relaying Peter Parker's thoughts and narrating portions of the events.
Here's cobook writer Glenn Berger.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
The idea is that the geeks are generating this sort
of fan thick version of Spider Man based on the
one hundred and fifty comic books that they've read, and
they're arguing about it. What's the best scenario for the
fights that they've read or they can come up with,
And then when the girl geek, miss Arrow, introduces this
character of Arakney from Greek mythology, this character ends up
(10:42):
sort of taking the show away from the geeks. That's
the idea at least.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
The myth of Arakney was referred to in the first
issue of the Ultimate Spider Man comic book series. Basically,
Arakney was an arrogant weaver of tapestries transformed through godly
intervention into the world's first spider. Tamoor conceived this character
(11:09):
as the show's primary villain and planned for the show's
second act to end with a jaw dropping battle between
a Rakney and our web slinging hero. In the fall
of two thousand and six, the four creatives Bono, the Edge,
Julie Taymoor, and Glenn Berger gathered at Bono's New York
(11:32):
City penthouse to read through the first draft of the
script and listen to early versions of the songs. In
this intimate setting, it seemed like the show was off
to a great start, and as the meeting progressed, the
excitement mounted.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
When Bono relaxes, he takes off his sunglasses, you know,
and they came off, and they were on the coffee table.
The rest of the day. Bono and Edge just had
these just germs of ideas for you know, some of
the big songs that we wanted for the musical like
Rise Above. And then their next song was this bouncing
off the Wall song, which is just goofy, you know,
(12:12):
throw yourself around the room type of song, and Julie's
sort of demonstrating how she imagines the choreography to go.
So she begins this nutty dance with her, you know,
arms flying all over the place, and Bono understands what
she's getting at, and so he's getting up and getting
excited about it too, and you could just feel this
(12:33):
this real, lovely, lovely little electricity, and things got cooking.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
According to Berger, this joyous collaborative work session was when
he learned what the full title of their show would be.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
Bono he had a friend whose daughter didn't like when
it gets dark when she goes to bed, and so
she likes to leave the lights on. But instead of saying, daddy,
you leave the lights on, she says, could you turn
off the dark?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Since internationally famous rock stars Bono and the Edge were
constantly distracted by things like making best selling albums and
playing sold out arena tours as you do, they still
had a lot of songs to complete. As the two
thousand and seven reading, which would be attended by theater
(13:21):
VIPs and Marvel executives drew near.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
Bono and Edge did have their work cut out for
them to have a completed score in time for our
first workshop presentation in July two thousand and seven. Definitely
only about four or five months before that. They didn't
really have anything completed completed, but musicians, you know, they
(13:50):
just need a deadline.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
A company of actors performed the script and songs in
a rehearsal room without sets, props, costumes, or special effects.
Despite the bare bones nature of this presentation, the the
show seemed to be in good shape. Oh man.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
The feeling after that reading was we were sitting pretty
we were set. Obviously there were some things to work out,
but we had a hit man. The songs were killer.
The uh, you know, the script. It would get some tweaks,
of course, but it was basically there, and that was
the consensus. I mean, everyone was feeling such relief. Actually,
(14:33):
you know, I mean the idea then is that you
build on that. But I think that was probably our
peak moment in the evolution of the entire show.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Enter the technical elements, since flying sequences were so pivotal
to the Spider Man story, aerial designers got to work
right away. They came up with a plan that would
allow two performers to simultaneously spring into the air and
duke it out while suspended. It was based on the
(15:07):
koreening cameras used at football games, with multiple wires allowing
for movement in any direction. However, it hadn't been used
on humans, and it certainly hadn't been used on humans
performing live in a Broadway theater. In the nineteen fifties
(15:27):
musical Peter Pan, the flying scenes were accomplished by humans
pulling ropes backstage to counteract the actor's weight on stage,
but Spider Man's aerial magic would be controlled by automation.
You know, technology, that fool proof thing. Most musicals do
(15:48):
a brief run in another city before officially opening in
New York. It's known colloquially as an out of town tryout.
Here's playwright and Broadway actor Eric Ayoa, who saw Turn
Off the Dark several times during its run.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
So shows out of town tryout is when they take
the show literally, they take it out of town to
try it out. You've been in a studio, you've been
rehearsing it. It's a very closed experience. And now you're
taking in that last part of the puzzle. The audience.
Are they reacting, are they laughing? Are they bored?
Speaker 5 (16:20):
When they leaning?
Speaker 7 (16:21):
When are they falling asleep? What's not clear. The best
shows and the best teams are the ones that actually
use their out of town wisely and listen to the
audiences and to what they're hearing, and perhaps take some
of those bad reviews and use that to fuel a
better version.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Unfortunately, Spider Man's innovative technical demands were making an out
of town tryout impossible. Producer David Garfinkel made the call
they would start rehearsals for the Broadway production Cold, One
of Broadway's biggest houses, was booked, the eighteen hundred seat
(16:57):
Hilton Theater. Design meetings took place day and night. Enormous
comic book style sets were being built, and a lot
of money started getting spent. No one would officially confirm
the budget at that time, but insiders estimated it at
forty million dollars. On February twenty fourth, two thousand and nine,
(17:21):
The New York Times announced that Spider Man Turn Off
the Dark would begin preview performances in January twenty ten.
Casting began for all thirty one roles. Movie star Evan
rachel Wood, who had performed in the two thousand and
seven reading, accepted the role of Peter Parker's love interest
(17:42):
Mary Jane, and Alan Cumming was on board to place
Spidey's nemesis, the Green Goblin. Though opening night was discreetly
delayed until February twenty ten to allow for massive renovations
to the theater, Excitement swelled amongst the creative team and
(18:04):
the newly cast actors, that is, until they found out
the production had run out of money, like completely. In
an interview with Sixty Minutes, Bono claimed he found out
things were in such bad condition when he read about
(18:25):
it in the New York Post. Luckily, Bono, being Bono,
knew a few people. He convinced Michael Cole, former chairman
of Live Nation, to take the producing rains. In regards
to the show's finances, Cole said, quote, I can summarize
in one word, bankrupt. Turn off the Dark shut down
(18:49):
entirely for the remainder of two thousand and nine. While
Cole struggled to secure funding, Evan rachel Wood and Alan
Cumming both bowed out for on screen jobs, and work
didn't resume at the theater until March of twenty ten,
while the show struggled to regain its financial footing. Rehearsals
(19:12):
officially began that August. Director Taymor shuttled back and forth
between the rehearsal room and the theater, which had been
renamed the Foxwoods, where sets were getting installed and the
aerial team was mapping out how to get, among other things,
Spider Man to ride the Green Goblin mid air like
(19:34):
a surfboard. A lot of scenes were so complex they
couldn't be worked out until the start of tech rehearsals,
which was a scary prospect. But what else could be
done in the same sixty minutes piece. Taymor owned that fear, saying, oh, yeah,
I'm scared. If you don't have fear, then you're not
(19:57):
taking a chance. But what I do have is a team.
If your collaborators are there, which is what answers the
fear question, and they all are as an passioned as
you are and believe in it, your fear is mitigated.
Soon enough it was time to begin the all important
tech rehearsals. Given the show's enormous scale, it made sense
(20:21):
that things were going to go slowly. What worried co
writer Glenn Berger though, was just how slowly.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
After four days we were getting through forty two seconds
of the show for every hour of Tech.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And to make matters worse, it was only a few
days into Tech when the first injury occurred. A dancer
playing one of several flying Spider Man was supposed to
flip backwards while being hoisted into the air by cables
and land on a ramp that was lowering into place
(20:57):
behind him. On September twenty sixth, the ramp didn't lower
to the proper degree. The off kilter landing fractured the
dancer's foot and broke his toe. Then, during a presentation
for sales agents and ticket brokers on October nineteenth, another
(21:18):
dancer was performing the very same move.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
I remember seeing him WinCE when he made the landing,
and I could tell that something might be up.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Something was up, all right. The dancer had broken both
his wrists.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
So alast two injuries now. And really the other thing
that no one was really saying out loud, but it
was in the back of all our minds, was I
hope this doesn't leave the theater, because it would be
good if this got out.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Unfortunately it did. People were talking about Spider Man, and
not in the kindest terms, But no one seemed to
take more delight in Spider Man's misfortunes than New York
Post columnist Michael Reid, who said of the show quote,
I've got my foot on its neck and I'm having
(22:11):
too much fun to take it off. Reedel gleefully reported
any Spidy gossip that crossed his desk, proclaiming in mid
November that the budget was now up to sixty five
million dollars. Here's dancer Bethany Moore, who months later would
wind up getting cast in the show.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
It's not like people were scared to audition. Everybody wanted
in on this big blockbuster show.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So yeah, you had.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Some like little titis in the background, but the overall
was like, they're doing what they can with what they got.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I just hope everybody's okay. With increased safety measures in
place and the New York Department of Labor coming by
to sign off on the dangerous stunts, the rehearsal process
slowed even further, do either to safety concerns or a
need for more time or bow. With the official opening
(23:08):
night was moved yet again to January two, thy eleven.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Everything was so high tech, the pit lists and the
air pressure needed for those, and everything was computerizing. If
it was off a half an inch of that, emergency
stops would happen.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
But hey, the Act one finale, where Spider Man rides
the Green Goblin like a surfboard, that at least was
looking really cool. Suddenly, before anyone was fully prepared, the
first paying audience was filling the Foxwoods Theater for the
first preview performance. It was November twenty eighth, twenty ten,
(23:49):
and all those people who'd been whispering about the show
on the outside were about to find out if it
lived up to the hype. The show kept stopping. I
think there were four or five holds the first night.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
All I remember is hearing about a new actor injury
or technical malfunction every week.
Speaker 7 (24:16):
The Spider Man, who was supposed to repel down into
the aisle missed his mark by a few inches, and
I ended up having most of Spider Man's torso on
my lap, which wasn't the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The first preview of Spider Man Turn Off the Dark
ran three and a half hours. Technical issues brought the
show to a halt five times. In certain moments, actors
dangled helplessly over the heads of the waiting audience while
technicians troubleshot the problem. Still, given the size of the undertaking,
(24:51):
the fact that there were only five holds was seen
by some as a win. Let's hear from dancer Bethany Moore.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
I had seen the show a few weeks before auditioning
for it, not knowing that it had anything to do
with my future, and though I was kind of confused
with some of the more musical theater moments, the spectacle
was unlike anything I had seen. It was like on
par with the Circusolay kind of thing, where they're flying
(25:24):
with silks in the beginning, and the Chrysler building coming
out into the audience like a pop up book.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
To make sure that the moments that didn't yet work
were raised to the level of those that did, the
producers once again decided to move the opening date, this
time to February seventh, twenty eleven. There was time to
keep working and everyone intended to. Of chief concern was
(25:54):
the second act, which was mostly about Spider Man's relationship
with mythical Spider Goddess. A Rackney co book writer Glenn Berger, explains.
Speaker 6 (26:05):
The idea was comin. Back one was going to be
this grand battle between Spider Man and the Green Goblin,
and it was going to be amazing, and there's no
way you can top it, but we were going to
top it by having Act too be this incredible battle
above the heads of the audience, inside this giant web
that was going to funnel down from the ceiling over
(26:27):
the heads of the audience, and there's going to be
this crazy, scrambling spider fight and it was actually going
to Act one, but the web funnel that we were
counting on didn't work, and so we had to scrap
it before even the first preview, and that was a
million bucks that you went to a landfill.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Other moments in Act two were just plain overwhelming, not
necessarily in a good way.
Speaker 7 (26:51):
There was this moment that was almost like a fashion
runway of villains. They all came at once, and I
was like, whoa, whoa, whoall we could really keep this
Green Goblin centric.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Questions about plot clarity, however, paled in comparison to what
happened next. On December twentieth, twenty ten, a dancer named
Chris Tierney, who did some of the show's most impressive
stunt work, was improperly connected to the safety apparatus that
(27:21):
suspended him mid air in a live recreation of a
comic book style leap in front of that night's audience.
Tierney made the leap, and, with a sickening sense of dread,
felt the cable go slack with these split second physical
(27:42):
intelligence required of a professional at his level. Tierney twisted
himself around so he wouldn't land on his head. Mercifully,
he landed on his back after falling thirty feet straight down.
He broke three vertebrae and four ribs and fractured his elbow, scapula,
(28:05):
and skull. The very next day was supposed to have been,
at one point, the show's triumphant opening. Instead, Tierney's life
threatening fall was making headlines, and a bootleg video of
the catastrophe was starting to be spread. First, the theater
(28:26):
community took note, with an original Rent cast member writing
on Facebook quote they should put Julie Taymore in jail
for assault, and Tony Award winning actor Alice Ripley tweeting quote,
does someone have to die? Where is the line for
these decision makers. I am curious, but soon attention crossed
(28:50):
over into the mainstream.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Now you're all familiar with the Broadway musical Spider Man.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
It's been having its troubles and what had to close
down for a while.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Late night shows poked fun at turn off the Dark,
as did Saturday Night Live repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We specialize in assisting clients where sustained injuries while working
at or attending the Broadway musical spider Man too perform.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Publications from The New York Times to The Onion dissected
the show's misfortunes. Joan Rivers started opening her stand up
act with a moment of silence for quote those Americans
risking their lives daily in spider Man the Musical. Here's
(29:34):
playwright Eric Ulloa again, who saw the show several times
during its run, speaking about the aftermath of Tyranney's fall.
Speaker 7 (29:44):
Of course, when it happened, it was all over the news.
I'm like, every local news was on that. And then
the weird thing is like and here is just part
of societal collapse. Ticket sales went up. Ticket sales went
up because it became this weird thing that like you
may see someone maimed on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Previews and rehearsals eventually resumed. Opening night was moved again
to March fifteenth, but by this point the New York
critics had had it. They made a controversial move publishing
reviews of Turn Off the Dark on the show's previous
opening night February seventh. In his New York Times review,
(30:27):
drama critic Ben Brantley said, quote, only when things go
wrong in this production does it feel remotely right, if
by right one means entertaining, before musing that it may
be one of Broadway's worst shows.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
So it became clear to some of us working on
the show that things needed to be changed in a
more drastic fashion than we were changing them in the
preview period. And so these two camps ended up forming
(31:04):
and bought on Edge and Me to begin with, we're
sort of trying to strike a middle ground to find
a way to move things forward. Cut this and move this.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Inspired by offhand observations made by a crew member, cobook
writer Glenn Berger had begun reinvestigating the show's structure. His
collaborator didn't exactly approve.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
Julie was in the camp of let's implement the original vision.
And if people start introducing other fixes and visions, you know,
that have been generated on the fly at the eleventh
hour before this original vision gets done, not only is
it going to you know, collapse morale, and not only
(31:54):
is it vetted in the same way that this original
vision was vetted, but really is it going to be
as good?
Speaker 7 (32:00):
You know?
Speaker 6 (32:00):
Can't we just stay the course and see what we have?
And so don't introduce this option, don't want to hear it.
So it becomes suddenly it becomes Spyer's Spy.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
In early March, director Julie Taymor gave a TED talk
discussing her career. She opened the talk with an oblique
reference to Spider Man, saying, quote, anybody who creates knows
there's that point where it hasn't quite become the phoenix
or the burnt char and I am right there on
(32:35):
the edge. But she didn't say anything about stepping back
from the fire. If anything, she seemed as keen as
ever to keep going. She wouldn't have the opportunity to
do so. Exactly one week after her TED talk, the
New York Times announced Tamor had been fired the producers,
(32:57):
along with Bono and the Edge had responded positively to
Glenn Berger's outline for a potential restructuring of show, and
they just couldn't find common ground with Tamor on implementing
these changes. Adjustments included moving the Green Goblin fight from
(33:18):
the end of Act one to the end of the show,
making Spider Goddess Arachne less of a major villain, and
losing the Geek chorus completely. To help implement this overhaul,
a new book writer was added to the mix, Roberto
Agire Sikassa. As both a playwright and writer for Marvel Comics,
(33:43):
he seemed ideal. The New York Times bombshell articles announcing
all these shakeups also stated that performances would be shut
down while the show retooled. Opening night would be delayed
a sixth time a sixth time to June fourteenth, twoenty eleven.
(34:07):
Julie Taymor's replacement was Philip William McKinley, who had directed
the Hugh Jackman Broadway vehicle The Boy from Oz, as
well as several actual circuses. As McKinley got to work
overseeing the changes, preview performances resumed. At this point. It's
(34:27):
worth noting that most Broadway shows have about thirty preview performances.
By March twenty eleven, Spider Man had blown well past
one hundred.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
The risk to upsetting the Apple car is that, you know,
a whole lot of apples gets filled out of the cart.
And there were things both anticipated and not anticipated when
Julie left the building, and so several people who we
thought would be retained, like Danny Ezralo, the choreographer, ended
(35:03):
up just remaining banished out in California. And there were
dancers who, you know, when they were becoming upset that
the new choreographer was making them learn all these new
dance moves, which was confusing to the dancers because they
thought all of this was a script problem, not a
dancing problem. But a few of the dancers, a couple
(35:24):
of them, said well bye, goodbye. At this point, the
show had been running in previews for what like seven months, right,
and so it wasn't unusual for there to be turnover
after seven months. It was just unusual that there was
turnover after seven months for a show that still hadn't opened.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Dancer Bethany Moore, again, I got a call from my agent,
and she says, Bethany there's a last minute replacement call
for Spider Man.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Can you make it in two hours? And so I
called my agent back and I was like, I will
be there in two hours. So I put my hair
in a messy ponytail, grabbed some shoes, a shirt off
the floor. Look looking back on it, I looked kind
of like a rock star. I walk in there and
Chase Brock is in there, and I love his stuff.
(36:14):
It's very quirky and actor driven, and so I'm just
loving this. I feel like I'm doing Thriller and Rup
Paul's Drag Race in one combination, and I am thrilled.
I left feeling great. I was like, I didn't book it,
but I had a great time. This was so much fun.
(36:35):
My phone rings just hours after leaving, and it's a
two one two number, and we always have a joke
if we don't know what two to one two, it's
Broadway and I answer it and I couldn't feel my face,
I couldn't feel my hands. And with my agent saying,
you've got it and you start tomorrow. So I left there,
(36:58):
went straight to the place where I was working in
Hill's kitchen, I said, I quit. I I'm on Broadway, Bye, Sorry,
and wow. We started the next day.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Bethany Moore was the last performer cast in the lead
up to the show's actual opening. All the upheaval meant
that Bethany, who was brand new to the show, and
the rest of the beleaguered cast who'd been at it
for months and months, we're now performing version one point zero,
aka the Julie Taymor version, while rehearsing a very different
(37:33):
version two point zero. During the day.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
We would learn a new dance in the same song
that we had been performing at night in our previews,
so we would have to remember what we rehearsed in
the morning, not do that at night because it hadn't
been tecked. But then you had to go back the
next day and teck the one that you'd done before,
so you couldn't do the show that you had.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Done that night.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
We would be backstage and we'd look at each other, like,
how does it go? What are we doing tonight? If
you saw a whole where there was a light, you're like,
that's probably where I should be.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
When they had to hold mid show for technical issues,
the cast had a little fun.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
It became almost like a game, so our stage manager
would sometimes put on single Ladies, and everybody we ended
up having to learn the single eighties dance, or making
our own version up and doing it in the ridiculous
costumes that we happened to be wearing at that time.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
And when a flying spider man got stuck dangling over
the audience's heads.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
He'd pretend to be swimming up there doing the backstroke,
and he would also wave.
Speaker 6 (38:46):
At the kids.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Oh, and the kids loved it.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
They just thought that was the coolest thing.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
The budget was now seventy million dollars. Finally, on April seventeenth,
the company played their last performance of Version one point zero.
The actors comprising the Geek Chorus promptly lost their jobs,
and the show shut down once again, so that the
remaining cast and crew could go back into three weeks
(39:15):
of tech. In Sunnier News, Chris Tierney, the dancer who
had been seriously injured after falling, recovered and rejoined the
company in April. Version two point zero, which began previewing
in may have its fans and its detractors. A lot
of director Tamor's stylish flourishes were gone, but the more
(39:40):
straightforward plot was certainly easier to grasp. Moving the Spider Man,
Green Goblin Aerials showdown to the end of the show
instead of the end of Act one made for a
satisfying climax two, because the general consensus is that the
scene was a knockout.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Even when we would be putting somebody in, like an understudy,
into the Green Goblin fight or something, we would all
go sit in the audience. All the lights are up,
nobody's really in costume, and we couldn't get enough. Even
the cast. We would sit there and watch, like this
is amazing. You try to record it on your little
phone and it never captured it. Because I wanted to
(40:21):
show how cool it was. You just had to be there.
I don't think anybody can deny that they were not
in awe of those moments.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Though the glitches never entirely went away. Turn Off the
Dark was finally on track to open, but the fact
that things were starting to go more smoothly didn't turn
people's attention away. If anything, the mockery intensified.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
I didn't really have time or the capacity to care
or see what other people were talking about at that point,
which probably in retrospect, was a good thing.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Spider Man was ineligible for the twenty eleven Tony A
Wary Words because it hadn't officially opened, but it was
used as a punchline throughout the ceremony. Bono and the
Edge gamely chuckled from the audience while host Neil Patrick
Harris challenged himself to make all the jokes about their
show he could in thirty seconds. This included gems such as.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
Spider Man's the only show on Broadway where the actors
in the cast they're actually in castsoo.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
This was two days before Spider Man's for Real this
time opening night. Co writer Glenn Berger had barely spoken
to Julie Taymour after she'd been fired, but she was
very much on his mind in advance of this momentous occasion,
which had been years in the making.
Speaker 6 (41:53):
Literally we were about to open. I'm looking at the
show and everything that I felt was of worth came
from her. We had been talking for years of about
what the show was about, and the anthem was rise above,
you know, and it was about being the better person
(42:14):
and finding ways to move forward. You can talk about it,
you can talk about it all the time, but do
you live it. It's one thing for artists to like, Oh,
these are nice sentiments and I'm gonna put them in
a show. But how much of what an artist writes
do they mean? Do they live? So in that spirit,
I also hadn't slept in like nine months. I called Julie.
(42:38):
I knew she wasn't going to pick up. I left
the message basically saying, look, everything that's good, it's yours,
and you should come and you should see the show,
and you should take the bow and accept the plaudits
that would be coming to you. Because there was a
lot of work.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
Opening night, it felt a little dream like because everybody's
energy was buzzy because it was finally happening.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
At the end of the show, late audition director Philip
McKinley stood on stage giving shout outs to the cast,
crew and creators before calling Julie Taymor up from the house.
She received a bouquet of roses and embraced her former
collaborators with big smiles all around. After a record breaking
(43:35):
one hundred and eighty three previews, a record breaking final
budget of seventy five million dollars, notorious injuries, collaborative rifts,
and numerous delays, Spider Man Turn Off the Dark had
survived its gauntlet of setbacks and controversies and was finally open.
(43:59):
The question now, how long would it stick around?
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I saw it well the first act. It was so bizarre,
weirdest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
I would actually love to see it again.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Theater fans and columnists speculated that Spider Man Turn Off
the Dark wouldn't return its massive investment, nor would it
last through the end of twenty eleven. While it's true
it never returned its investment, it did remain open on
Broadway for two and a half more years. In early
(44:49):
twenty twelve, turn Off the Dark had Broadways all time
highest grossing week, raking in two point nine million dollars.
By the time the twenty twelve Tony Awards rolled around,
the now eligible Spider Man received two nominations, one for
(45:09):
George Seepen's eye popping forced perspective sets and another for
Aiko Ishioka's dazzling costumes. Playwright and Broadway performer Eric Uyoa
remembers what was beautiful about the show vividly, even all
these years later.
Speaker 7 (45:28):
There was no dearth of great ideas in this show
that you know, really interesting choreography that mimicked the idea
of comic books and action sequences. I remember the sets
were gorgeous. I always think of Spider Man as like
some incredible giant opera that happened.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
You know.
Speaker 7 (45:48):
Sometimes I can go to an opera and while it
may not interest me, or it's just much too long
and I don't maybe understand the language or whatever it is, like,
I hate can leave and go. But Dan, that was
pretty to look at. And that's what I can say.
You know, with Spider Man as that it did always
look great. You know, the money was there, God knows
the money was there.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
In early twenty twelve, Spider Man's producers agreed to pay
Julie Taymor nearly ten thousand dollars a week for her
contribution as original director. By April twenty thirteen, the remainder
of the legal disputes were resolved, and, as always happens
in showbiz, everyone moved on to other projects. Cast member
(46:33):
Bethany Moore left Spider Man Turn Off the Dark in
June twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
I left to go do into the Woods in the Park.
It felt strange to go from Spider Man to.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Sondhaig Initially, co writer Glenn Berger had no idea what
would be next for him.
Speaker 6 (46:52):
So I found myself washed ashore, you know, at the
end of it. And you know, my agent said, Glenn,
you've been telling me what's been going on for all
these months and years, and I've been on the edge
of my seat the whole time. You need to write
a book. And that was the last thing I wanted
to do, was write a book. But she was right.
(47:12):
Someone had to write it, and I was kind of
the one who was perfectly placed to write it. And
I'm a writer, so I wrote it.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Berger's book was published in twenty thirteen. Few can argue
that the title song of Spider Man, the inside story
of the most controversial musical in Broadway history, is hyperbolic.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
Everybody ideally should write a memoir about ten years of
their life. When I was writing the memoir, every day
I would sit down with my coffee and be very calm,
and I start writing, and within an hour, I'm shouting
at the screen. I'm saying, Glenn, don listen to that.
You have to, you know, And I'm feeling clammy, I'm sweaty,
(47:59):
I'm agitated, my heart's racing, and at the end of
the day, I say to myself, tomorrow, don't do that.
Keep it chill man. What I realized is that I
hadn't just recorded these memories in my head. I recorded
them in my body, which is what we do, and
so I kind of gave into that and just allowed
(48:20):
myself to purge. It was like a sauna.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Producer Michael Cole's son, filmmaker Jacob Cole, shot footage of
the show throughout the lead up to opening night, creating
a documentary that has yet to be publicly shown. According
to one unnamed source, it will quote never see the
light of day. On August fifteenth, twenty thirteen, there was tragically,
(48:50):
one more major injury during the performance. A hydraulic lift
was rising from below the stage. It stopped due to
a blockage. A company member's foot was caught between the
hydraulic lift and the stage door. The only way to
free him was to saw out part of the stage.
(49:13):
The performer later sued the producers for negligence, though the
producers stated that the injury was due to human error. Eventually,
OSHA investigated claimed the producers had failed to secure protective
machine guarding and find them after weeks of declining ticket sales,
(49:36):
Spider Man Turn Off the Dark closed on January fourth,
twenty fourteen. The Foxwoods Theater, formerly The Hilton, is now
called the Lyric and is currently home to another brand
name star Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Oh and
(49:58):
sidebar because of course he's wrapped up in this too.
Expelled Congressman George Santos once claimed to be a producer
on the show, As with a number of other things,
the former congressman has said this is not true. All
these years later, questions remain about how the Spider Man
(50:21):
Musical failed to become something more lauded. The fact that
initial producer Tony Adams died, leaving the show in the
hands of producers who hadn't much or any experience in
theater is often mentioned. The lack of an out of
town tryout surely helped increase the risk from a low
(50:44):
simmer to a five alarm fire. Given the show's extremely
ambitious tech. It all seemed possible on paper, but in practice.
Speaker 6 (50:55):
You're told that it'll work, and you're told by engineers
or whatever, this will be just as good. It will work,
I mean, like all the ridiculous dysfunction, which at least
was limited to a musical on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
There's also been much speculation about how much leeway Taymor
got from the producers, how they should perhaps have strong
armed her into making clearer or more cost effective choices.
And yet here's Julie Taymour, a certified MacArthur genius at
the top of her game, someone who has only ever
(51:34):
gotten praise for being an uncompromising visionary. It's hard to
believe she was ever apt to compromise. Early on, Tamor
had had the instinct that the show shouldn't be done
in a Broadway theater at all, but more of an
arena with circus performers and acrobats. Throughout the process, She'd
(51:59):
even told those involved with the show quote, let's not
even call it a musical, it's a circus rock and
ry drama. Perhaps taking it out of the Broadway frame
would have made more sense, after.
Speaker 7 (52:13):
All, wouldn't that be great Spider Man arena tour featuring
songs from You two written directly for that arena tour.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
The setbacks, the injuries, the shod in freud. One journalist
called it spiden freud of going after the big brand name,
the big rock stars, the big theater auteur, the glee
of watching them all no pun intended fall. All of
that is, of course compelling, but it doesn't reflect those
(52:42):
behind the scenes who did excellent work. Nor does it
reflect the people in the cast, those Broadway troopers who
were far less famous and well compensated than Bono or
the Edge or Tamor. Long after the creatives left the building,
the cast had to continue actually doing the show night
(53:05):
after night, directly in the glare of the spotlight, and
yet not ever really spotlet during the long, uphill battle
to get Spider Man across the finish line. Maybe the
biggest question in all of this is how did they
get through it?
Speaker 4 (53:24):
I think the biggest lesson that I learned from Spider
Man was learning to love, like, actually love a project,
even if you aren't the biggest fan of the musical.
And this is going to happen several times during a career.
If you're lucky enough to book enough musicals, You're not
always going to love the show, but you have to
(53:48):
love what you do as a part of that show.
And put on my Spider Man sweatshirt and my hoodie
over my head, and I'd walk up the stairs around
half hour and I would see all the kids coming
in in their little Spider Man t shirts or full costumes,
and I would hear this little girl in a Spider
(54:09):
Man two too, like Santo got me these tickets six
months ago. When I'd finally hear, I'm like, oh man,
we do something really awesome. It's magic to them, and
we get to be a part of that magic.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Not every Broadway show will become an unqualified artistic or
commercial success. In fact, the truth is very few ever are.
No show is guaranteed a lengthy run, nor are Broadway
theater investors ever guaranteed anything close to a return on
their investment. Certainly, no musical is going to appeal to
(54:49):
every fan of musicals, nor even less likely, every critic.
But you never know what's going to connect with someone watching,
what's going to influence the next generation, what moment of
live stage magic might inspire someone out there to attempt
(55:10):
that uniquely perilous high wire act. The art of making theater.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
All right?
Speaker 5 (55:23):
Great story lived up to the high one thousand percent, Saron,
I know you're going to cast this. Before you do,
I just I don't want the movie version of this.
I do want that unauthorized documentary that they talked about
might exist. I definitely want to see that. I just
want to see this show. Can we get the people?
This could be a huge thing. They would to gather
(55:44):
these people. Put this on again. Everything they're remaking everything,
remake this.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
They're still on Broadway. Let's get Reeve Carney back. What's
you working on?
Speaker 1 (55:53):
I also would like to see like a cubist version
of like all the various bootleg cameras and all the
videos there are and stitch those together.
Speaker 5 (56:03):
All right, go for it?
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Casting? What do you got before? Are you casting?
Speaker 5 (56:07):
Also?
Speaker 1 (56:07):
I coined a word with this show? All right? So
the Spider Man Show inspired me because I was like
trying to describe something about a scene to myself and
I was like, well, then all the Spider Man And
I was like, wait, spider Man, is that the plural
for multiple Spider Man? And I started thinking about, you
know the collective nouns for animals. Right, there's like a
murder of crows, a crash of rhinos, a bloat of hippos, right,
So I was like, what would be the collective noun
(56:29):
for a group of Spider Man. So I came up
with an amazement of Spider Man.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
An amazement of Spider Man. That's claps to Seren.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
That's why I thought it worked right. But my best friend,
he was a huge Spiderman fan, so I had to
kind of a running headstart on this one.
Speaker 5 (56:42):
That's good. It wasn't James Lipton, the one who coined
a lot of those or helped on Earth a lot
of those collective believe.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
That's the story. But I don't know that could be
an episode. Did you guys have any very special characters?
Speaker 2 (56:54):
You know, I respect Julie taymor is just vision. I
love someone doing something big and new in theater. Look,
if you're going to take a familiar property and you're
going to bring it into a new arena, make it
pun intended a big swing, and so I respect Julie
Taymore for her vision.
Speaker 5 (57:12):
Absolutely. No, you know, we had some fun. I don't
think there's any way not to with this story. But
those people all put a huge amount of time and
thought and talent into this, And when something is going badly,
Glenn kind of explains, like that first time they realize that,
(57:32):
Oh Jude, I hope this doesn't get outside the theater,
and that is just such a terrifying human moment. It
definitely felt for him and Julie and everyone involved.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Yeah, yeah, completely. I think my very special character has
to be former Congressman George Santos, who once claimed to
be a producer of the Spider Man Show.
Speaker 5 (57:53):
So yeah, yeah, he should bring it back.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
He really should, you know, he should take he should
go to Broadway. I think really he's missed his mark.
Now you ask about casting, Okay, I thought about this
one and it was pretty straightforward, right, So I gave
myself only one rule, which was I was trying to
cast the fallen Spider Man, you know, the Chris Tianny,
the dancer. I excluded all the cinematic Spider Man, and
so I went with Donald Glover, who's technically like kind
(58:19):
of on the edge of Spider Man. I think he's
played him, but he hasn't played him in person. So
Donald Glover, Now Julie Tamoor, I thought Jessica Chestin.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
I swear to god, I also think I was also
thinking Jessica Chestin to.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
See she's had the same vibe, right, Okay, then so
for Bono, I thought Ben Stiller, but if he's not available,
Kate Blanchett perfect.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
She can do anything, honestly, she could also be Tamed.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
She could play both, and.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
She could also be Spider. She could be Reeve Carney Goblins.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Just now, for the Edge, I thought Paul Rudd, just
in a surprising, you know, deeply character driven role. And
then for the journalist Michael Ridle, I would pick possibly.
Speaker 2 (59:00):
Oh what about Nathan Lane.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Nathan Lane would be great. Oh my god, but he
has had such Broadway energy. I mean it was almost
almost too small of.
Speaker 5 (59:07):
A part for him.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Oh, so how.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
About Matthew Brodericks.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Just keep it Broadway, I mean, keep it Broadway Broderick
can play it.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, totally. So there you go. There's my casting.
Speaker 5 (59:18):
Did you have a Glenn Berger, the guy who wrote
the book.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
I thought Glen Burger should play Glenn Burger. He was
so good as himself. He's the one. Like it's like
Jackie Robinson has to play Jackie Robinson in the movie.
Glenn Burger plays Glenn Berger.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
I think I'm Mike Glenn Burger. I was picturing like
a Bill hatern Bill Hater with glasses, you know, when
Bill Hater wears glasses.
Speaker 5 (59:38):
I like that call though, Yeah, did anyone have any
other tangent on a run through?
Speaker 1 (59:44):
I did have one thing, which was I tried to imagine, like,
you know, you're this theater kid. You want to go
to Broadway, right, You've always dreamed of like being on Broadway.
You're this dancer. Then eventually you get there, right, and
then what happens? Some tech comes up to you and
it's like, hey, hey, you know those cameras they got
these days that fly over the football field and they
(01:00:04):
got all those cables and motors like you. They guys like, yeah,
what if we did that with you? And the guy's like,
what do you mean? Like that's our plan? You're gonna
love it? Like this is you get the Broadway. And
then if it's not that, then you like, let's say
you're one of the dancers who falls, right, So then yeah,
you're worried you're gonna be buried and just in a
Spider Man costume because they can't get it off your
body because the bones or whatever. It's just like a
tragic scene. I'm like, these poor dancers, they had a
(01:00:25):
dream and then it turned into this.
Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
I did like listening to the dancer Bethany explaining what
it was like totally the audition call, Like, even in
the midst of the bad headlines, this was the biggest
thing on Broadway. Of course you take that call.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Oh, I would do it today if they were like Dane,
We're doing a revival of Spider Man Turned off the Drug?
Do you want to audition? Is a dancer? I don't
even know how to dance, And I'm like, I am
in that room that show. I'll be a Rackney in
the first version.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Do it do all the shoes totally less dancing.
Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah. Do you know what I kind of wish I
kind of wish we could have gotten Julie Taymoor's fully
unadulterated circus vision, like taking place in like a crazy
site specific tent.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I think that would have been great.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Also, I was thinking about when they're having all their difficulties,
you know that people like in Vegas and Circuslay were like,
call me, I can help you with this, Like we
do this all the time.
Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
This is what we do.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, call us.
Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
None of us saw this show, But have either of
you ever seen anything insane happen in live theater?
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
I've never seen like an actor get arrested on stage
or anything that wild. But like, I've seen the audience
do some wild stuff, like you know, really poorly behaving
audience members, not just like you know, way past answering
a phone call, like getting in a food fight with
like you know, with the drinks that they should not
even have in the theater.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
So I've seen that, but it doesn't feel like that's
not the actors. I feel like I'm associating.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
All right, you want to hear my crazy story?
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Yes, have you seen?
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Did you end up seeing The Music Man with Sutton
Foster and Hugh Jackman two times? So here's the thing,
and you'll know there's a scene in that and you're like,
star power, Hugh Jackman, Son Foster, what charisma. There's a
scene I think in the second act, and it's sort
of a slow scene where he pushes her or she
pushes him, and they break like they make the joke
(01:02:14):
that like she pushed him a little too hard, and
then Hugh Jackman sort of steps out a character and
is like, ah, what's that thing? You're like, Oh, that's
so charming. We get this like winning movie star moment.
How casual we got the show where they broke. They
do that every single show. They build in in the
rehearsals of the show. They built in a moment to
(01:02:37):
break specifically, so it feels special and intimate for the audience.
Speaker 5 (01:02:41):
The first time I saw it it was so endearing,
and then, like I said, I saw it twice thought, Ah,
these they're just really good.
Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Actors, brilliant. That is so amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
They're such good acting. He truly is the greatest showman.
Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
I can totally see that.
Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
That says it all. On another high flying adventure here
on the Very Special Episodes podcast. We'll be back next week.
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
See you next week.
Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This episode was written by Joe Kenosian Broadway Joe. We
call him more on him in a Moment. Our producer
is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound design by Chris Childs.
Additional editing by Emily Meredof. Story editors are Josh Fisher
(01:03:27):
and Marissa Brown. Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Original
music by Elise McCoy, Research in fact checking by Austin
Thompson and Joe Kenosian. Show logo by Lucy Kintonia Very
Special Episodes is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Zaren Burnett, and
me Jason English. I am your executive producer and we'll
(01:03:48):
see you back here next Wednesday. If you like today's episode,
go check out a show called Let's Start a Coup
the plot against FDR. That was a six episode series
co written and co hosted by Joe Kenosian, who wrote
today's story. Lots of character voices. It feels like a play.
We ever take that to our first call is the Edge.
(01:04:09):
Very Special Episodes is the production of iHeart Podcasts.
Originals. This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In twenty eleven, after many delays, one of the most
publicized musicals in all of theater history finally opened on Broadway.
It had a brand, it had tons of buzz, and
it elicited some strong reactions. It was quite the talk
(00:43):
of the town.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
There were bugs.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The show kept stopping. I mean, the hubbub about the
show was everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
The new actor injury or technical malfunction every week was
so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The musical was Spider Man Turn Off the Dark, and
for a show that aimed to rise above all of
Broadway musicals in terms of scale and ambition, its downfall
would turn out to be long and treacherous.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
My husband and I were in the audience tonight Chris
Tierney fell and it was awful.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
We honestly thought we'd watched someone die on stage. That
fall didn't just traumatize the audience, it echoed a warning.
The ambition of Spider Man Turn Off the Dark was
swinging dangerously close to the edge. Welcome to very special
(01:44):
episodes and I heeart original podcast. I'm your host Danish
Schwartz and this is Spider Man Turn Up the Pod.
I am so excited about this episode. This has been
a subject that has actually been my obsession for a
(02:04):
very long time. Jason, I feel like you know that
this is the subject that I like bring up in
conversation that has just like warped my brain in a
way that has altered my physical chemistry permanently. I'm talking,
of course, about the Spider Man Turn Off the Dark Musical,
a musical I never saw, but that astounds me and
delights me to this very day, nonetheless.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
And not just you. We used a quote from this
episode in our trailer a couple months ago, and I
think more than any other potential episode that people heard about,
this is the one we get the most inquiries about
when is the Spider Man? And then they often have
some story. Sometimes it's not even a good story, like
(02:47):
oh I almost went. I knew someone who went, like
people just want to be associated with this musical, and
I'm so excited we get to tell this story today.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
My best friend did see it on Broadway, and she
went to one of those magical performances where something went wrong,
and so she has a great story about how, during
like one of the swinging scenes, the actor who played
Spider Man, Reeve Carney was suspended for like a full
ten minutes, just above the audience, like the house lights
went on, and this poor guy had to just stay
(03:19):
there and he was sort of still doing like pew
pew like sort of still staying in character. Like ten
minutes is a long time.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh heck were you guys? Are both theater kids correct?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, is that not obvious?
Speaker 5 (03:31):
I was the star of the fifth grade play, but
that was the peak of my acting career.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Can you imagine either one of you standing on stage
for ten minutes and you have nothing to do, nothing,
You're just standing there.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Quiet, suspended above the audience in character.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Full minute unbelievable with lots of danger. So I never
got to see this show. I was living in the
New York area during the entire run. I regret it immentally.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now I can't believe you didn't see I'm so jealous.
I was too young, I did not live in New York,
and I did not have disposable income. That's my excuse.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, I wanted to see it too. I also really
would love to if I could. And this is like
an imaginary thing, but you know, the choreographer Bob fosse
All that jazz. That guy, right, I would love to
be able to talk to him about this show, you know, like, hey,
well after you were gone, they did Spider Man. I
just like see him ask questions.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I would love to see Stephen Sondheim's face during a
production of this show. For anyone who has not gotten
to see the show, and obviously it's no longer running
so you can't. You can go to YouTube and look up.
I hope it's still up. So I'm saying this, but
there is a David Letterman performance of the Broadway show
of them singing a song called a Freak like Me
(04:43):
Needs Company, and you can see David Letterman's soul leave
his body during the performance. Over the course of the performance,
you can track it. You see the life draining from
his eyes.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Speaking your souls leaving their body. Any story for me
that involves the youtubo's guitarist, the Edge, walking out of
a room and then walking back into a dead man,
I'm just like tell me this story.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Yeah, I didn't expect deaths, and I knew there were injuries, but.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
This is all surprised. The story dispacked with surprise.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
All right, why don't we get into this one? And
we will catch up on the other side.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
As with many recent Broadway shows, the jumping off place
for the Spider Man Musical was a movie, specifically the
two thousand and two Toby McGuire Spider Man Film, which
not only got solid reviews but raked in over eight
hundred million dollars. With Disney properties like Beauty and the
(05:37):
Beast and The Lion King leaping successfully from the screen
to Broadway, Marvel was keen to map a similar course
for Spidey's newly invigorated brand. Marvel placed spider Man's Broadway
future in the hands of charismatic producer Tony Adams and
(05:59):
his business partner, entertainment lawyer David Garfinkel. The two convinced
no less than Bono and The Edge of U two
to compose the songs for the as yet unwritten show.
For the director, Bono and the Edge pushed to bring
on Julie Taymour, whose production of The Lion King became
(06:23):
the most profitable musical of all time, grossing eight point
two billion dollars worldwide. Julie Taymour was universally hailed as
an uncompromising visionary, and her clout had now earned her
creative control over the forthcoming Spider Man musical. To that end,
(06:46):
Taymoor would not only direct, but co write the script
or in theater, lingo the book. In two thousand and five,
the call went out for prospective writing collaborators to submit
a sample scene. Playwright and TV writer Glenn Berger was
one of many who submit it, but instead of a scene,
(07:09):
he wrote a rambling conceptual treatise. It read, as he
tells it, like he was on drugs, but good drugs.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Maybe it wasn't the most exquisitely structured piece of writing
I've ever done, but it was enough for me to
get an interview, and by the ending of the interview
it became clear that the thing that they actually wanted
was a scene. So I said, oh, yeah, absolutely, a scene.
Great idea. So I said, I'll have it to you
(07:40):
tomorrow morning, and I sped back home upstate and spent
the night writing a scene. And actually I knew that
next morning at dawn birds or twittering, and I press send,
and I kind of knew that I nailed it, actually,
And so it wasn't surprising when later that afternoon Julie
called me and said, yeah, yeah, you Got It.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Eager to get started, Berger relocated to New York City. Meanwhile,
producer and show cheerleader Tony Adams was hammering out the
official deal. On October twentieth, though, tragedy struck. Adams had
just gotten Bono's and Taymor's signatures on the contract and
(08:21):
went to secure the Edges. The Edge left the room
to get a pen, and when he came back, Adams
was slumped over the table. He'd suffered a stroke. Two
days later, he was dead. The show was now in
the hands of Adam's partner, David Garfinkel. While Garfinkel was
(08:43):
extremely well connected in showbiz circles, he had never before
produced a play or musical. Nevertheless, a reading was planned
for mid two thousand and seven. Bono and The Edge
started writing songs, leaning heavily on their distinctive rock style,
while also incorporating faux classical vocal harmonies and typical musical
(09:08):
theater razzle dazzle. Glen Berger worked on the book, building
dialogue out of the treatment he and Taymor had created.
The first act of the show was to be Your
Classic Origin Story, as laid out in the comic book,
and two thousand and two film Bullied teenager Peter Parker
(09:29):
gets bitten by a genetically modified Spider, is sheathed in
the iconic form fitting red suit, and becomes the titular superstar,
great power, great responsibility, you know the deal. However, the
intention was to marry that well known tale with Taymoor's
(09:49):
many bold theatrical new ideas. One of these editions was
a geek chorus, a pun on the ancient theatrical device
of a Greek chorus. Spider Man's geek chorus consists of
of four talkative nerds who would move the action along
(10:11):
by relaying Peter Parker's thoughts and narrating portions of the events.
Here's cobook writer Glenn Berger.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
The idea is that the geeks are generating this sort
of fan thick version of Spider Man based on the
one hundred and fifty comic books that they've read, and
they're arguing about it. What's the best scenario for the
fights that they've read or they can come up with,
And then when the girl geek, miss Arrow, introduces this
character of Arakney from Greek mythology, this character ends up
(10:42):
sort of taking the show away from the geeks. That's
the idea at least.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
The myth of Arakney was referred to in the first
issue of the Ultimate Spider Man comic book series. Basically,
Arakney was an arrogant weaver of tapestries transformed through godly
intervention into the world's first spider. Tamoor conceived this character
(11:09):
as the show's primary villain and planned for the show's
second act to end with a jaw dropping battle between
a Rakney and our web slinging hero. In the fall
of two thousand and six, the four creatives Bono, the Edge,
Julie Taymoor, and Glenn Berger gathered at Bono's New York
(11:32):
City penthouse to read through the first draft of the
script and listen to early versions of the songs. In
this intimate setting, it seemed like the show was off
to a great start, and as the meeting progressed, the
excitement mounted.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
When Bono relaxes, he takes off his sunglasses, you know,
and they came off, and they were on the coffee table.
The rest of the day. Bono and Edge just had
these just germs of ideas for you know, some of
the big songs that we wanted for the musical like
Rise Above. And then their next song was this bouncing
off the Wall song, which is just goofy, you know,
(12:12):
throw yourself around the room type of song, and Julie's
sort of demonstrating how she imagines the choreography to go.
So she begins this nutty dance with her, you know,
arms flying all over the place, and Bono understands what
she's getting at, and so he's getting up and getting
excited about it too, and you could just feel this
(12:33):
this real, lovely, lovely little electricity, and things got cooking.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
According to Berger, this joyous collaborative work session was when
he learned what the full title of their show would be.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
Bono he had a friend whose daughter didn't like when
it gets dark when she goes to bed, and so
she likes to leave the lights on. But instead of saying, daddy,
you leave the lights on, she says, could you turn
off the dark?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Since internationally famous rock stars Bono and the Edge were
constantly distracted by things like making best selling albums and
playing sold out arena tours as you do, they still
had a lot of songs to complete. As the two
thousand and seven reading, which would be attended by theater
(13:21):
VIPs and Marvel executives drew near.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
Bono and Edge did have their work cut out for
them to have a completed score in time for our
first workshop presentation in July two thousand and seven. Definitely
only about four or five months before that. They didn't
really have anything completed completed, but musicians, you know, they
(13:50):
just need a deadline.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
A company of actors performed the script and songs in
a rehearsal room without sets, props, costumes, or special effects.
Despite the bare bones nature of this presentation, the the
show seemed to be in good shape. Oh man.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
The feeling after that reading was we were sitting pretty
we were set. Obviously there were some things to work out,
but we had a hit man. The songs were killer.
The uh, you know, the script. It would get some tweaks,
of course, but it was basically there, and that was
the consensus. I mean, everyone was feeling such relief. Actually,
(14:33):
you know, I mean the idea then is that you
build on that. But I think that was probably our
peak moment in the evolution of the entire show.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Enter the technical elements, since flying sequences were so pivotal
to the Spider Man story, aerial designers got to work
right away. They came up with a plan that would
allow two performers to simultaneously spring into the air and
duke it out while suspended. It was based on the
(15:07):
koreening cameras used at football games, with multiple wires allowing
for movement in any direction. However, it hadn't been used
on humans, and it certainly hadn't been used on humans
performing live in a Broadway theater. In the nineteen fifties
(15:27):
musical Peter Pan, the flying scenes were accomplished by humans
pulling ropes backstage to counteract the actor's weight on stage,
but Spider Man's aerial magic would be controlled by automation.
You know, technology, that fool proof thing. Most musicals do
(15:48):
a brief run in another city before officially opening in
New York. It's known colloquially as an out of town tryout.
Here's playwright and Broadway actor Eric Ayoa, who saw Turn
Off the Dark several times during its run.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
So shows out of town tryout is when they take
the show literally, they take it out of town to
try it out. You've been in a studio, you've been
rehearsing it. It's a very closed experience. And now you're
taking in that last part of the puzzle. The audience.
Are they reacting, are they laughing? Are they bored?
Speaker 5 (16:20):
When they leaning?
Speaker 7 (16:21):
When are they falling asleep? What's not clear. The best
shows and the best teams are the ones that actually
use their out of town wisely and listen to the
audiences and to what they're hearing, and perhaps take some
of those bad reviews and use that to fuel a
better version.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Unfortunately, Spider Man's innovative technical demands were making an out
of town tryout impossible. Producer David Garfinkel made the call
they would start rehearsals for the Broadway production Cold, One
of Broadway's biggest houses, was booked, the eighteen hundred seat
(16:57):
Hilton Theater. Design meetings took place day and night. Enormous
comic book style sets were being built, and a lot
of money started getting spent. No one would officially confirm
the budget at that time, but insiders estimated it at
forty million dollars. On February twenty fourth, two thousand and nine,
(17:21):
The New York Times announced that Spider Man Turn Off
the Dark would begin preview performances in January twenty ten.
Casting began for all thirty one roles. Movie star Evan
rachel Wood, who had performed in the two thousand and
seven reading, accepted the role of Peter Parker's love interest
(17:42):
Mary Jane, and Alan Cumming was on board to place
Spidey's nemesis, the Green Goblin. Though opening night was discreetly
delayed until February twenty ten to allow for massive renovations
to the theater, Excitement swelled amongst the creative team and
(18:04):
the newly cast actors, that is, until they found out
the production had run out of money, like completely. In
an interview with Sixty Minutes, Bono claimed he found out
things were in such bad condition when he read about
(18:25):
it in the New York Post. Luckily, Bono, being Bono,
knew a few people. He convinced Michael Cole, former chairman
of Live Nation, to take the producing rains. In regards
to the show's finances, Cole said, quote, I can summarize
in one word, bankrupt. Turn off the Dark shut down
(18:49):
entirely for the remainder of two thousand and nine. While
Cole struggled to secure funding, Evan rachel Wood and Alan
Cumming both bowed out for on screen jobs, and work
didn't resume at the theater until March of twenty ten,
while the show struggled to regain its financial footing. Rehearsals
(19:12):
officially began that August. Director Taymor shuttled back and forth
between the rehearsal room and the theater, which had been
renamed the Foxwoods, where sets were getting installed and the
aerial team was mapping out how to get, among other things,
Spider Man to ride the Green Goblin mid air like
(19:34):
a surfboard. A lot of scenes were so complex they
couldn't be worked out until the start of tech rehearsals,
which was a scary prospect. But what else could be
done in the same sixty minutes piece. Taymor owned that fear, saying, oh, yeah,
I'm scared. If you don't have fear, then you're not
(19:57):
taking a chance. But what I do have is a team.
If your collaborators are there, which is what answers the
fear question, and they all are as an passioned as
you are and believe in it, your fear is mitigated.
Soon enough it was time to begin the all important
tech rehearsals. Given the show's enormous scale, it made sense
(20:21):
that things were going to go slowly. What worried co
writer Glenn Berger though, was just how slowly.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
After four days we were getting through forty two seconds
of the show for every hour of Tech.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And to make matters worse, it was only a few
days into Tech when the first injury occurred. A dancer
playing one of several flying Spider Man was supposed to
flip backwards while being hoisted into the air by cables
and land on a ramp that was lowering into place
(20:57):
behind him. On September twenty sixth, the ramp didn't lower
to the proper degree. The off kilter landing fractured the
dancer's foot and broke his toe. Then, during a presentation
for sales agents and ticket brokers on October nineteenth, another
(21:18):
dancer was performing the very same move.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
I remember seeing him WinCE when he made the landing,
and I could tell that something might be up.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Something was up, all right. The dancer had broken both
his wrists.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
So alast two injuries now. And really the other thing
that no one was really saying out loud, but it
was in the back of all our minds, was I
hope this doesn't leave the theater, because it would be
good if this got out.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Unfortunately it did. People were talking about Spider Man, and
not in the kindest terms, But no one seemed to
take more delight in Spider Man's misfortunes than New York
Post columnist Michael Reid, who said of the show quote,
I've got my foot on its neck and I'm having
(22:11):
too much fun to take it off. Reedel gleefully reported
any Spidy gossip that crossed his desk, proclaiming in mid
November that the budget was now up to sixty five
million dollars. Here's dancer Bethany Moore, who months later would
wind up getting cast in the show.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
It's not like people were scared to audition. Everybody wanted
in on this big blockbuster show.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So yeah, you had.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Some like little titis in the background, but the overall
was like, they're doing what they can with what they got.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I just hope everybody's okay. With increased safety measures in
place and the New York Department of Labor coming by
to sign off on the dangerous stunts, the rehearsal process
slowed even further, do either to safety concerns or a
need for more time or bow. With the official opening
(23:08):
night was moved yet again to January two, thy eleven.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Everything was so high tech, the pit lists and the
air pressure needed for those, and everything was computerizing. If
it was off a half an inch of that, emergency
stops would happen.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
But hey, the Act one finale, where Spider Man rides
the Green Goblin like a surfboard, that at least was
looking really cool. Suddenly, before anyone was fully prepared, the
first paying audience was filling the Foxwoods Theater for the
first preview performance. It was November twenty eighth, twenty ten,
(23:49):
and all those people who'd been whispering about the show
on the outside were about to find out if it
lived up to the hype. The show kept stopping. I
think there were four or five holds the first night.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
All I remember is hearing about a new actor injury
or technical malfunction every week.
Speaker 7 (24:16):
The Spider Man, who was supposed to repel down into
the aisle missed his mark by a few inches, and
I ended up having most of Spider Man's torso on
my lap, which wasn't the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The first preview of Spider Man Turn Off the Dark
ran three and a half hours. Technical issues brought the
show to a halt five times. In certain moments, actors
dangled helplessly over the heads of the waiting audience while
technicians troubleshot the problem. Still, given the size of the undertaking,
(24:51):
the fact that there were only five holds was seen
by some as a win. Let's hear from dancer Bethany Moore.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
I had seen the show a few weeks before auditioning
for it, not knowing that it had anything to do
with my future, and though I was kind of confused
with some of the more musical theater moments, the spectacle
was unlike anything I had seen. It was like on
par with the Circusolay kind of thing, where they're flying
(25:24):
with silks in the beginning, and the Chrysler building coming
out into the audience like a pop up book.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
To make sure that the moments that didn't yet work
were raised to the level of those that did, the
producers once again decided to move the opening date, this
time to February seventh, twenty eleven. There was time to
keep working and everyone intended to. Of chief concern was
(25:54):
the second act, which was mostly about Spider Man's relationship
with mythical Spider Goddess. A Rackney co book writer Glenn Berger, explains.
Speaker 6 (26:05):
The idea was comin. Back one was going to be
this grand battle between Spider Man and the Green Goblin,
and it was going to be amazing, and there's no
way you can top it, but we were going to
top it by having Act too be this incredible battle
above the heads of the audience, inside this giant web
that was going to funnel down from the ceiling over
(26:27):
the heads of the audience, and there's going to be
this crazy, scrambling spider fight and it was actually going
to Act one, but the web funnel that we were
counting on didn't work, and so we had to scrap
it before even the first preview, and that was a
million bucks that you went to a landfill.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Other moments in Act two were just plain overwhelming, not
necessarily in a good way.
Speaker 7 (26:51):
There was this moment that was almost like a fashion
runway of villains. They all came at once, and I
was like, whoa, whoa, whoall we could really keep this
Green Goblin centric.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Questions about plot clarity, however, paled in comparison to what
happened next. On December twentieth, twenty ten, a dancer named
Chris Tierney, who did some of the show's most impressive
stunt work, was improperly connected to the safety apparatus that
(27:21):
suspended him mid air in a live recreation of a
comic book style leap in front of that night's audience.
Tierney made the leap, and, with a sickening sense of dread,
felt the cable go slack with these split second physical
(27:42):
intelligence required of a professional at his level. Tierney twisted
himself around so he wouldn't land on his head. Mercifully,
he landed on his back after falling thirty feet straight down.
He broke three vertebrae and four ribs and fractured his elbow, scapula,
(28:05):
and skull. The very next day was supposed to have been,
at one point, the show's triumphant opening. Instead, Tierney's life
threatening fall was making headlines, and a bootleg video of
the catastrophe was starting to be spread. First, the theater
(28:26):
community took note, with an original Rent cast member writing
on Facebook quote they should put Julie Taymore in jail
for assault, and Tony Award winning actor Alice Ripley tweeting quote,
does someone have to die? Where is the line for
these decision makers. I am curious, but soon attention crossed
(28:50):
over into the mainstream.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Now you're all familiar with the Broadway musical Spider Man.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
It's been having its troubles and what had to close
down for a while.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Late night shows poked fun at turn off the Dark,
as did Saturday Night Live repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We specialize in assisting clients where sustained injuries while working
at or attending the Broadway musical spider Man too perform.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Publications from The New York Times to The Onion dissected
the show's misfortunes. Joan Rivers started opening her stand up
act with a moment of silence for quote those Americans
risking their lives daily in spider Man the Musical. Here's
(29:34):
playwright Eric Ulloa again, who saw the show several times
during its run, speaking about the aftermath of Tyranney's fall.
Speaker 7 (29:44):
Of course, when it happened, it was all over the news.
I'm like, every local news was on that. And then
the weird thing is like and here is just part
of societal collapse. Ticket sales went up. Ticket sales went
up because it became this weird thing that like you
may see someone maimed on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Previews and rehearsals eventually resumed. Opening night was moved again
to March fifteenth, but by this point the New York
critics had had it. They made a controversial move publishing
reviews of Turn Off the Dark on the show's previous
opening night February seventh. In his New York Times review,
(30:27):
drama critic Ben Brantley said, quote, only when things go
wrong in this production does it feel remotely right, if
by right one means entertaining, before musing that it may
be one of Broadway's worst shows.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
So it became clear to some of us working on
the show that things needed to be changed in a
more drastic fashion than we were changing them in the
preview period. And so these two camps ended up forming
(31:04):
and bought on Edge and Me to begin with, we're
sort of trying to strike a middle ground to find
a way to move things forward. Cut this and move this.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Inspired by offhand observations made by a crew member, cobook
writer Glenn Berger had begun reinvestigating the show's structure. His
collaborator didn't exactly approve.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
Julie was in the camp of let's implement the original vision.
And if people start introducing other fixes and visions, you know,
that have been generated on the fly at the eleventh
hour before this original vision gets done, not only is
it going to you know, collapse morale, and not only
(31:54):
is it vetted in the same way that this original
vision was vetted, but really is it going to be
as good?
Speaker 7 (32:00):
You know?
Speaker 6 (32:00):
Can't we just stay the course and see what we have?
And so don't introduce this option, don't want to hear it.
So it becomes suddenly it becomes Spyer's Spy.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
In early March, director Julie Taymor gave a TED talk
discussing her career. She opened the talk with an oblique
reference to Spider Man, saying, quote, anybody who creates knows
there's that point where it hasn't quite become the phoenix
or the burnt char and I am right there on
(32:35):
the edge. But she didn't say anything about stepping back
from the fire. If anything, she seemed as keen as
ever to keep going. She wouldn't have the opportunity to
do so. Exactly one week after her TED talk, the
New York Times announced Tamor had been fired the producers,
(32:57):
along with Bono and the Edge had responded positively to
Glenn Berger's outline for a potential restructuring of show, and
they just couldn't find common ground with Tamor on implementing
these changes. Adjustments included moving the Green Goblin fight from
(33:18):
the end of Act one to the end of the show,
making Spider Goddess Arachne less of a major villain, and
losing the Geek chorus completely. To help implement this overhaul,
a new book writer was added to the mix, Roberto
Agire Sikassa. As both a playwright and writer for Marvel Comics,
(33:43):
he seemed ideal. The New York Times bombshell articles announcing
all these shakeups also stated that performances would be shut
down while the show retooled. Opening night would be delayed
a sixth time a sixth time to June fourteenth, twoenty eleven.
(34:07):
Julie Taymor's replacement was Philip William McKinley, who had directed
the Hugh Jackman Broadway vehicle The Boy from Oz, as
well as several actual circuses. As McKinley got to work
overseeing the changes, preview performances resumed. At this point. It's
(34:27):
worth noting that most Broadway shows have about thirty preview performances.
By March twenty eleven, Spider Man had blown well past
one hundred.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
The risk to upsetting the Apple car is that, you know,
a whole lot of apples gets filled out of the cart.
And there were things both anticipated and not anticipated when
Julie left the building, and so several people who we
thought would be retained, like Danny Ezralo, the choreographer, ended
(35:03):
up just remaining banished out in California. And there were
dancers who, you know, when they were becoming upset that
the new choreographer was making them learn all these new
dance moves, which was confusing to the dancers because they
thought all of this was a script problem, not a
dancing problem. But a few of the dancers, a couple
(35:24):
of them, said well bye, goodbye. At this point, the
show had been running in previews for what like seven months, right,
and so it wasn't unusual for there to be turnover
after seven months. It was just unusual that there was
turnover after seven months for a show that still hadn't opened.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Dancer Bethany Moore, again, I got a call from my agent,
and she says, Bethany there's a last minute replacement call
for Spider Man.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Can you make it in two hours? And so I
called my agent back and I was like, I will
be there in two hours. So I put my hair
in a messy ponytail, grabbed some shoes, a shirt off
the floor. Look looking back on it, I looked kind
of like a rock star. I walk in there and
Chase Brock is in there, and I love his stuff.
(36:14):
It's very quirky and actor driven, and so I'm just
loving this. I feel like I'm doing Thriller and Rup
Paul's Drag Race in one combination, and I am thrilled.
I left feeling great. I was like, I didn't book it,
but I had a great time. This was so much fun.
(36:35):
My phone rings just hours after leaving, and it's a
two one two number, and we always have a joke
if we don't know what two to one two, it's
Broadway and I answer it and I couldn't feel my face,
I couldn't feel my hands. And with my agent saying,
you've got it and you start tomorrow. So I left there,
(36:58):
went straight to the place where I was working in
Hill's kitchen, I said, I quit. I I'm on Broadway, Bye, Sorry,
and wow. We started the next day.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Bethany Moore was the last performer cast in the lead
up to the show's actual opening. All the upheaval meant
that Bethany, who was brand new to the show, and
the rest of the beleaguered cast who'd been at it
for months and months, we're now performing version one point zero,
aka the Julie Taymor version, while rehearsing a very different
(37:33):
version two point zero. During the day.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
We would learn a new dance in the same song
that we had been performing at night in our previews,
so we would have to remember what we rehearsed in
the morning, not do that at night because it hadn't
been tecked. But then you had to go back the
next day and teck the one that you'd done before,
so you couldn't do the show that you had.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Done that night.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
We would be backstage and we'd look at each other, like,
how does it go? What are we doing tonight? If
you saw a whole where there was a light, you're like,
that's probably where I should be.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
When they had to hold mid show for technical issues,
the cast had a little fun.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
It became almost like a game, so our stage manager
would sometimes put on single Ladies, and everybody we ended
up having to learn the single eighties dance, or making
our own version up and doing it in the ridiculous
costumes that we happened to be wearing at that time.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
And when a flying spider man got stuck dangling over
the audience's heads.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
He'd pretend to be swimming up there doing the backstroke,
and he would also wave.
Speaker 6 (38:46):
At the kids.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Oh, and the kids loved it.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
They just thought that was the coolest thing.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
The budget was now seventy million dollars. Finally, on April seventeenth,
the company played their last performance of Version one point zero.
The actors comprising the Geek Chorus promptly lost their jobs,
and the show shut down once again, so that the
remaining cast and crew could go back into three weeks
(39:15):
of tech. In Sunnier News, Chris Tierney, the dancer who
had been seriously injured after falling, recovered and rejoined the
company in April. Version two point zero, which began previewing
in may have its fans and its detractors. A lot
of director Tamor's stylish flourishes were gone, but the more
(39:40):
straightforward plot was certainly easier to grasp. Moving the Spider Man,
Green Goblin Aerials showdown to the end of the show
instead of the end of Act one made for a
satisfying climax two, because the general consensus is that the
scene was a knockout.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Even when we would be putting somebody in, like an understudy,
into the Green Goblin fight or something, we would all
go sit in the audience. All the lights are up,
nobody's really in costume, and we couldn't get enough. Even
the cast. We would sit there and watch, like this
is amazing. You try to record it on your little
phone and it never captured it. Because I wanted to
(40:21):
show how cool it was. You just had to be there.
I don't think anybody can deny that they were not
in awe of those moments.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Though the glitches never entirely went away. Turn Off the
Dark was finally on track to open, but the fact
that things were starting to go more smoothly didn't turn
people's attention away. If anything, the mockery intensified.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
I didn't really have time or the capacity to care
or see what other people were talking about at that point,
which probably in retrospect, was a good thing.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Spider Man was ineligible for the twenty eleven Tony A
Wary Words because it hadn't officially opened, but it was
used as a punchline throughout the ceremony. Bono and the
Edge gamely chuckled from the audience while host Neil Patrick
Harris challenged himself to make all the jokes about their
show he could in thirty seconds. This included gems such as.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
Spider Man's the only show on Broadway where the actors
in the cast they're actually in castsoo.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
This was two days before Spider Man's for Real this
time opening night. Co writer Glenn Berger had barely spoken
to Julie Taymour after she'd been fired, but she was
very much on his mind in advance of this momentous occasion,
which had been years in the making.
Speaker 6 (41:53):
Literally we were about to open. I'm looking at the
show and everything that I felt was of worth came
from her. We had been talking for years of about
what the show was about, and the anthem was rise above,
you know, and it was about being the better person
(42:14):
and finding ways to move forward. You can talk about it,
you can talk about it all the time, but do
you live it. It's one thing for artists to like, Oh,
these are nice sentiments and I'm gonna put them in
a show. But how much of what an artist writes
do they mean? Do they live? So in that spirit,
I also hadn't slept in like nine months. I called Julie.
(42:38):
I knew she wasn't going to pick up. I left
the message basically saying, look, everything that's good, it's yours,
and you should come and you should see the show,
and you should take the bow and accept the plaudits
that would be coming to you. Because there was a
lot of work.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
Opening night, it felt a little dream like because everybody's
energy was buzzy because it was finally happening.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
At the end of the show, late audition director Philip
McKinley stood on stage giving shout outs to the cast,
crew and creators before calling Julie Taymor up from the house.
She received a bouquet of roses and embraced her former
collaborators with big smiles all around. After a record breaking
(43:35):
one hundred and eighty three previews, a record breaking final
budget of seventy five million dollars, notorious injuries, collaborative rifts,
and numerous delays, Spider Man Turn Off the Dark had
survived its gauntlet of setbacks and controversies and was finally open.
(43:59):
The question now, how long would it stick around?
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I saw it well the first act. It was so bizarre,
weirdest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
I would actually love to see it again.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Theater fans and columnists speculated that Spider Man Turn Off
the Dark wouldn't return its massive investment, nor would it
last through the end of twenty eleven. While it's true
it never returned its investment, it did remain open on
Broadway for two and a half more years. In early
(44:49):
twenty twelve, turn Off the Dark had Broadways all time
highest grossing week, raking in two point nine million dollars.
By the time the twenty twelve Tony Awards rolled around,
the now eligible Spider Man received two nominations, one for
(45:09):
George Seepen's eye popping forced perspective sets and another for
Aiko Ishioka's dazzling costumes. Playwright and Broadway performer Eric Uyoa
remembers what was beautiful about the show vividly, even all
these years later.
Speaker 7 (45:28):
There was no dearth of great ideas in this show
that you know, really interesting choreography that mimicked the idea
of comic books and action sequences. I remember the sets
were gorgeous. I always think of Spider Man as like
some incredible giant opera that happened.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
You know.
Speaker 7 (45:48):
Sometimes I can go to an opera and while it
may not interest me, or it's just much too long
and I don't maybe understand the language or whatever it is, like,
I hate can leave and go. But Dan, that was
pretty to look at. And that's what I can say.
You know, with Spider Man as that it did always
look great. You know, the money was there, God knows
the money was there.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
In early twenty twelve, Spider Man's producers agreed to pay
Julie Taymor nearly ten thousand dollars a week for her
contribution as original director. By April twenty thirteen, the remainder
of the legal disputes were resolved, and, as always happens
in showbiz, everyone moved on to other projects. Cast member
(46:33):
Bethany Moore left Spider Man Turn Off the Dark in
June twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
I left to go do into the Woods in the Park.
It felt strange to go from Spider Man to.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Sondhaig Initially, co writer Glenn Berger had no idea what
would be next for him.
Speaker 6 (46:52):
So I found myself washed ashore, you know, at the
end of it. And you know, my agent said, Glenn,
you've been telling me what's been going on for all
these months and years, and I've been on the edge
of my seat the whole time. You need to write
a book. And that was the last thing I wanted
to do, was write a book. But she was right.
(47:12):
Someone had to write it, and I was kind of
the one who was perfectly placed to write it. And
I'm a writer, so I wrote it.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Berger's book was published in twenty thirteen. Few can argue
that the title song of Spider Man, the inside story
of the most controversial musical in Broadway history, is hyperbolic.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
Everybody ideally should write a memoir about ten years of
their life. When I was writing the memoir, every day
I would sit down with my coffee and be very calm,
and I start writing, and within an hour, I'm shouting
at the screen. I'm saying, Glenn, don listen to that.
You have to, you know, And I'm feeling clammy, I'm sweaty,
(47:59):
I'm agitated, my heart's racing, and at the end of
the day, I say to myself, tomorrow, don't do that.
Keep it chill man. What I realized is that I
hadn't just recorded these memories in my head. I recorded
them in my body, which is what we do, and
so I kind of gave into that and just allowed
(48:20):
myself to purge. It was like a sauna.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Producer Michael Cole's son, filmmaker Jacob Cole, shot footage of
the show throughout the lead up to opening night, creating
a documentary that has yet to be publicly shown. According
to one unnamed source, it will quote never see the
light of day. On August fifteenth, twenty thirteen, there was tragically,
(48:50):
one more major injury during the performance. A hydraulic lift
was rising from below the stage. It stopped due to
a blockage. A company member's foot was caught between the
hydraulic lift and the stage door. The only way to
free him was to saw out part of the stage.
(49:13):
The performer later sued the producers for negligence, though the
producers stated that the injury was due to human error. Eventually,
OSHA investigated claimed the producers had failed to secure protective
machine guarding and find them after weeks of declining ticket sales,
(49:36):
Spider Man Turn Off the Dark closed on January fourth,
twenty fourteen. The Foxwoods Theater, formerly The Hilton, is now
called the Lyric and is currently home to another brand
name star Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Oh and
(49:58):
sidebar because of course he's wrapped up in this too.
Expelled Congressman George Santos once claimed to be a producer
on the show, As with a number of other things,
the former congressman has said this is not true. All
these years later, questions remain about how the Spider Man
(50:21):
Musical failed to become something more lauded. The fact that
initial producer Tony Adams died, leaving the show in the
hands of producers who hadn't much or any experience in
theater is often mentioned. The lack of an out of
town tryout surely helped increase the risk from a low
(50:44):
simmer to a five alarm fire. Given the show's extremely
ambitious tech. It all seemed possible on paper, but in practice.
Speaker 6 (50:55):
You're told that it'll work, and you're told by engineers
or whatever, this will be just as good. It will work,
I mean, like all the ridiculous dysfunction, which at least
was limited to a musical on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
There's also been much speculation about how much leeway Taymor
got from the producers, how they should perhaps have strong
armed her into making clearer or more cost effective choices.
And yet here's Julie Taymour, a certified MacArthur genius at
the top of her game, someone who has only ever
(51:34):
gotten praise for being an uncompromising visionary. It's hard to
believe she was ever apt to compromise. Early on, Tamor
had had the instinct that the show shouldn't be done
in a Broadway theater at all, but more of an
arena with circus performers and acrobats. Throughout the process, She'd
(51:59):
even told those involved with the show quote, let's not
even call it a musical, it's a circus rock and
ry drama. Perhaps taking it out of the Broadway frame
would have made more sense, after.
Speaker 7 (52:13):
All, wouldn't that be great Spider Man arena tour featuring
songs from You two written directly for that arena tour.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
The setbacks, the injuries, the shod in freud. One journalist
called it spiden freud of going after the big brand name,
the big rock stars, the big theater auteur, the glee
of watching them all no pun intended fall. All of
that is, of course compelling, but it doesn't reflect those
(52:42):
behind the scenes who did excellent work. Nor does it
reflect the people in the cast, those Broadway troopers who
were far less famous and well compensated than Bono or
the Edge or Tamor. Long after the creatives left the building,
the cast had to continue actually doing the show night
(53:05):
after night, directly in the glare of the spotlight, and
yet not ever really spotlet during the long, uphill battle
to get Spider Man across the finish line. Maybe the
biggest question in all of this is how did they
get through it?
Speaker 4 (53:24):
I think the biggest lesson that I learned from Spider
Man was learning to love, like, actually love a project,
even if you aren't the biggest fan of the musical.
And this is going to happen several times during a career.
If you're lucky enough to book enough musicals, You're not
always going to love the show, but you have to
(53:48):
love what you do as a part of that show.
And put on my Spider Man sweatshirt and my hoodie
over my head, and I'd walk up the stairs around
half hour and I would see all the kids coming
in in their little Spider Man t shirts or full costumes,
and I would hear this little girl in a Spider
(54:09):
Man two too, like Santo got me these tickets six
months ago. When I'd finally hear, I'm like, oh man,
we do something really awesome. It's magic to them, and
we get to be a part of that magic.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Not every Broadway show will become an unqualified artistic or
commercial success. In fact, the truth is very few ever are.
No show is guaranteed a lengthy run, nor are Broadway
theater investors ever guaranteed anything close to a return on
their investment. Certainly, no musical is going to appeal to
(54:49):
every fan of musicals, nor even less likely, every critic.
But you never know what's going to connect with someone watching,
what's going to influence the next generation, what moment of
live stage magic might inspire someone out there to attempt
(55:10):
that uniquely perilous high wire act. The art of making theater.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
All right?
Speaker 5 (55:23):
Great story lived up to the high one thousand percent, Saron,
I know you're going to cast this. Before you do,
I just I don't want the movie version of this.
I do want that unauthorized documentary that they talked about
might exist. I definitely want to see that. I just
want to see this show. Can we get the people?
This could be a huge thing. They would to gather
(55:44):
these people. Put this on again. Everything they're remaking everything,
remake this.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
They're still on Broadway. Let's get Reeve Carney back. What's
you working on?
Speaker 1 (55:53):
I also would like to see like a cubist version
of like all the various bootleg cameras and all the
videos there are and stitch those together.
Speaker 5 (56:03):
All right, go for it?
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Casting? What do you got before? Are you casting?
Speaker 5 (56:07):
Also?
Speaker 1 (56:07):
I coined a word with this show? All right? So
the Spider Man Show inspired me because I was like
trying to describe something about a scene to myself and
I was like, well, then all the Spider Man And
I was like, wait, spider Man, is that the plural
for multiple Spider Man? And I started thinking about, you
know the collective nouns for animals. Right, there's like a
murder of crows, a crash of rhinos, a bloat of hippos, right,
So I was like, what would be the collective noun
(56:29):
for a group of Spider Man. So I came up
with an amazement of Spider Man.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
An amazement of Spider Man. That's claps to Seren.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
That's why I thought it worked right. But my best friend,
he was a huge Spiderman fan, so I had to
kind of a running headstart on this one.
Speaker 5 (56:42):
That's good. It wasn't James Lipton, the one who coined
a lot of those or helped on Earth a lot
of those collective believe.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
That's the story. But I don't know that could be
an episode. Did you guys have any very special characters?
Speaker 2 (56:54):
You know, I respect Julie taymor is just vision. I
love someone doing something big and new in theater. Look,
if you're going to take a familiar property and you're
going to bring it into a new arena, make it
pun intended a big swing, and so I respect Julie
Taymore for her vision.
Speaker 5 (57:12):
Absolutely. No, you know, we had some fun. I don't
think there's any way not to with this story. But
those people all put a huge amount of time and
thought and talent into this, And when something is going badly,
Glenn kind of explains, like that first time they realize that,
(57:32):
Oh Jude, I hope this doesn't get outside the theater,
and that is just such a terrifying human moment. It
definitely felt for him and Julie and everyone involved.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Yeah, yeah, completely. I think my very special character has
to be former Congressman George Santos, who once claimed to
be a producer of the Spider Man Show.
Speaker 5 (57:53):
So yeah, yeah, he should bring it back.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
He really should, you know, he should take he should
go to Broadway. I think really he's missed his mark.
Now you ask about casting, Okay, I thought about this
one and it was pretty straightforward, right, So I gave
myself only one rule, which was I was trying to
cast the fallen Spider Man, you know, the Chris Tianny,
the dancer. I excluded all the cinematic Spider Man, and
so I went with Donald Glover, who's technically like kind
(58:19):
of on the edge of Spider Man. I think he's
played him, but he hasn't played him in person. So
Donald Glover, Now Julie Tamoor, I thought Jessica Chestin.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
I swear to god, I also think I was also
thinking Jessica Chestin to.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
See she's had the same vibe, right, Okay, then so
for Bono, I thought Ben Stiller, but if he's not available,
Kate Blanchett perfect.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
She can do anything, honestly, she could also be Tamed.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
She could play both, and.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
She could also be Spider. She could be Reeve Carney Goblins.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Just now, for the Edge, I thought Paul Rudd, just
in a surprising, you know, deeply character driven role. And
then for the journalist Michael Ridle, I would pick possibly.
Speaker 2 (59:00):
Oh what about Nathan Lane.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Nathan Lane would be great. Oh my god, but he
has had such Broadway energy. I mean it was almost
almost too small of.
Speaker 5 (59:07):
A part for him.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Oh, so how.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
About Matthew Brodericks.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Just keep it Broadway, I mean, keep it Broadway Broderick
can play it.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, totally. So there you go. There's my casting.
Speaker 5 (59:18):
Did you have a Glenn Berger, the guy who wrote
the book.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
I thought Glen Burger should play Glenn Burger. He was
so good as himself. He's the one. Like it's like
Jackie Robinson has to play Jackie Robinson in the movie.
Glenn Burger plays Glenn Berger.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
I think I'm Mike Glenn Burger. I was picturing like
a Bill hatern Bill Hater with glasses, you know, when
Bill Hater wears glasses.
Speaker 5 (59:38):
I like that call though, Yeah, did anyone have any
other tangent on a run through?
Speaker 1 (59:44):
I did have one thing, which was I tried to imagine, like,
you know, you're this theater kid. You want to go
to Broadway, right, You've always dreamed of like being on Broadway.
You're this dancer. Then eventually you get there, right, and
then what happens? Some tech comes up to you and
it's like, hey, hey, you know those cameras they got
these days that fly over the football field and they
(01:00:04):
got all those cables and motors like you. They guys like, yeah,
what if we did that with you? And the guy's like,
what do you mean? Like that's our plan? You're gonna
love it? Like this is you get the Broadway. And
then if it's not that, then you like, let's say
you're one of the dancers who falls, right, So then yeah,
you're worried you're gonna be buried and just in a
Spider Man costume because they can't get it off your
body because the bones or whatever. It's just like a
tragic scene. I'm like, these poor dancers, they had a
(01:00:25):
dream and then it turned into this.
Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
I did like listening to the dancer Bethany explaining what
it was like totally the audition call, Like, even in
the midst of the bad headlines, this was the biggest
thing on Broadway. Of course you take that call.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Oh, I would do it today if they were like Dane,
We're doing a revival of Spider Man Turned off the Drug?
Do you want to audition? Is a dancer? I don't
even know how to dance, And I'm like, I am
in that room that show. I'll be a Rackney in
the first version.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Do it do all the shoes totally less dancing.
Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah. Do you know what I kind of wish I
kind of wish we could have gotten Julie Taymoor's fully
unadulterated circus vision, like taking place in like a crazy
site specific tent.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I think that would have been great.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Also, I was thinking about when they're having all their difficulties,
you know that people like in Vegas and Circuslay were like,
call me, I can help you with this, Like we
do this all the time.
Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
This is what we do.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, call us.
Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
None of us saw this show, But have either of
you ever seen anything insane happen in live theater?
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
I've never seen like an actor get arrested on stage
or anything that wild. But like, I've seen the audience
do some wild stuff, like you know, really poorly behaving
audience members, not just like you know, way past answering
a phone call, like getting in a food fight with
like you know, with the drinks that they should not
even have in the theater.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
So I've seen that, but it doesn't feel like that's
not the actors. I feel like I'm associating.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
All right, you want to hear my crazy story?
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Yes, have you seen?
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Did you end up seeing The Music Man with Sutton
Foster and Hugh Jackman two times? So here's the thing,
and you'll know there's a scene in that and you're like,
star power, Hugh Jackman, Son Foster, what charisma. There's a
scene I think in the second act, and it's sort
of a slow scene where he pushes her or she
pushes him, and they break like they make the joke
(01:02:14):
that like she pushed him a little too hard, and
then Hugh Jackman sort of steps out a character and
is like, ah, what's that thing? You're like, Oh, that's
so charming. We get this like winning movie star moment.
How casual we got the show where they broke. They
do that every single show. They build in in the
rehearsals of the show. They built in a moment to
(01:02:37):
break specifically, so it feels special and intimate for the audience.
Speaker 5 (01:02:41):
The first time I saw it it was so endearing,
and then, like I said, I saw it twice thought, Ah,
these they're just really good.
Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Actors, brilliant. That is so amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
They're such good acting. He truly is the greatest showman.
Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
I can totally see that.
Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
That says it all. On another high flying adventure here
on the Very Special Episodes podcast. We'll be back next week.
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
See you next week.
Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This episode was written by Joe Kenosian Broadway Joe. We
call him more on him in a Moment. Our producer
is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound design by Chris Childs.
Additional editing by Emily Meredof. Story editors are Josh Fisher
(01:03:27):
and Marissa Brown. Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Original
music by Elise McCoy, Research in fact checking by Austin
Thompson and Joe Kenosian. Show logo by Lucy Kintonia Very
Special Episodes is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Zaren Burnett, and
me Jason English. I am your executive producer and we'll
(01:03:48):
see you back here next Wednesday. If you like today's episode,
go check out a show called Let's Start a Coup
the plot against FDR. That was a six episode series
co written and co hosted by Joe Kenosian, who wrote
today's story. Lots of character voices. It feels like a play.
We ever take that to our first call is the Edge.
(01:04:09):
Very Special Episodes is the production of iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Jason English
Dana Schwartz
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