Director Julie Taymor Booted From Spider-Man Musical

But wowed audience loved 'heart-racing' stunts

(NEWSER) - Previews of Broadway musicals are rarely perfect, but last night's debut of the long-plagued Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was especially troubled. The start was delayed 24 minutes; the show was paused five times for technical problems; an actress hung upside down in the air for six minutes. Yet none of it was enough to dissuade many of the fans, who tweeted throughout expressing delight at the aerial stunts. Samples from the Wall Street Journal : "My heart was racing," said one audience member; "WOW on flying thru theater," said another. More»

Problem-plagued musical not worth your time, money: critics

(NEWSER) - Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark hasn’t officially opened yet, but people are already shelling out up to $275 a ticket to see it—and considering its opening has already been pushed back five times, many news organizations “skirted Broadway protocol” and reviewed the show today, since its last official opening date was last night (before it was postponed). The verdict: not good.

• The only way to make the money they spend worth it for theatergoers is to let them in on “the national joke that this problem-plagued show has become,” writes Ben Brantley in the New York Times . “Stock the Foxwoods gift shops with souvenir crash helmets and T-shirts that say 'I saw Spider-Man and lived.' Otherwise, a more appropriate slogan would be 'I saw Spider-Man and slept.'" Everything, from the music to the sets and the plot, is “sheer ineptitude.”

Negative reviews, money woes, poor ticket sales plague show

(NEWSER) - The abysmal reviews for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark were the final nail in its coffin, sources say. The long-troubled musical “is dead,” says one. The money is running out, tickets are going unsold, and Michael Riedel predicts it will stagger on for a few more months, but should be entirely dead by September—unless, of course, someone actually gets killed, in which case “Spider-Man could run longer than Cats,” he writes in the New York Post . More»

Star Natalie Mendoza quits following a series of injuries

(NEWSER) - A female star of the ultra-expensive, problem-plagued Spider-Man Broadway musical has walked out of the production following a stuntman's injury in a 30-foot plunge. Natalie Mendoza, 30, who plays the evil spider Arachne, suffered a concussion last month when she was hit in the head by a heavy rope on the first night of previews. The last time she performed, a castmate broke ribs and suffered internal bleeding when he plunged into a stage pit as his harness snapped. More»

Julie Taymor says she's not being fairly compensated

(NEWSER) - More drama behind the curtains for Broadway’s Spider-Man: Former director Julie Taymor is suing the show’s producers over what she says is a lack of compensation for her creative work. “The producers' actions have left her no choice but to resort to legal recourse to protect her rights,” her attorney says. Taymor was fired following much-publicized trouble onstage and off, but she's the only director eligible for a Tony for the show. More»