When is it time to pull the plug on a Broadway musical? Is it when the affable, competent, main producer dies just before signing the songwriters? No? Is it when the production is so short of money and credit that the remodeling of the theater stops? Not then? When the stage manager is throwing up daily from stress because it takes an hour of tech rehearsal for every 23 seconds of performance? Hmm? How about serious injuries to the cast? Still with me? Perhaps when the producers fire the world-famous, mercurial director and book (script) writer Julie Taymor? Well, they didn't close Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark until after it previewed for seven months (unheard of) and ran until last month, and it is now rumored to open in Las Vegas in 2015.
Glen Berger, credited in the show's program as co-bookwriter, gives a sometimes hilarious and sometimes dumbfounding portrait of his involvement with Spiderman, from conception to opening night in Song of Spider-Man. Not only did all of the things in the previous paragraph actually happen, but eventually Berger was saddled with two co-co-writers to come up with a radically different script after the firing of Julie Taymor and scathing reviews. Berger has little but praise for Bono and the Edge (of U2 fame and who wrote the songs) except that they might have been a little more focused on touring and being rock stars than was healthy for the production. Berger also admits that he even fell a little bit in love with Julie Taymor, before she lashed out at him for abandoning her to her fate at the hands of the ever-shifting producers. He also takes shots at Michael Riedel, a reporter from the New York Post, who seemed to delight in publicizing every stumble of the production. Above all, the enemy was time: time to rehearse with big-name stars, time to program the computers that controlled the flying works, time to rechoreograph dances while doing the original dances in the show in the evening, and a million other issues. Through it all, Berger was determined to get his piece of the most expensive Broadway musical ever.
While Song of Spiderman is not a particularly long book, it is dense. However, it is entirely engaging, and may keep you reading past your bedtime. You ask yourself, "What more could possibly go wrong?" and then something does. The index in the back is good for keeping track of the multitudinous players. I recommend this to anyone who has ever seen a show, even on the high school or elementary level, and wondered, "What really could be so hard about all that?" Everything.
And for more:
Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark Original Cast Recording. Didn't get to see it in New York? Now you can listen to what all the fuss was about.
Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made A Hat by Stephen Sondheim. A pair of memoirs with lyrics and photographs from the elder statesman of Broadway, who knows about the challenges of mounting a show.
Lost in Boston compact disc. Some songs didn't make it into the final versions of great American musicals. This disc showcases songs cut in previews from Annie Get Your Gun and The King And I, among others.
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