Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark Tickets : It Is The Most Expensive Broadway Production In History

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a rock musical with music and lyrics by U2's Bono and The Edge and a book by Julie Taymor and Glen Berger. The musical is based on the Spider-Man comic created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and published by Marvel Comics.

It is the most expensive Broadway production in history and had the longest preview period.The show includes highly technical stunts, such as actors swinging from "webs" and several aerial combat scenes.At the first preview performance, these technical challenges caused several lengthy interruptions,and the opening has been postponed several times. Numerous cast members suffered injuries during rehearsals and preview performances.

Although often described as a rock musical, the production "treads new ground" that some commentators have asserted "have effectively distanced it from its peers and caused some confusion when it comes time to describe the show."

The Edge stated that he is unsure of what description to use for the production, because "It is elements of rock and roll, it's elements of circus, it's elements of opera, of musical theater."Bono, admitting that his description is a little "pretentious," has referred to it as "pop-up, pop-art opera," noting that Julie Taymor is calling it a "rock-and-roll circus drama." Bono has also described the production as "wrestling with the same stuff" as "Rilke, Blake, 'Wings of Desire,' Roy Lichtenstein, the Ramones."

A 60 Minutes CBS special stated that it is being called a "comic book rock opera circus," although in that segment Bono noted that even using "rock" to describe the music is too narrow a description, because "We've moved out of the rock and roll idiom in places into some very new territory for us ... big show tunes and dance songs."

The production "is the most technically complex show ever on Broadway, with 27 aerial sequences of characters flying."The production not only features high-flying stunts, but also includes a "multitude of moving set pieces that put the audience in the middle of the action," and enough projections onto giant screens that Bono has said that it is like a three-dimensional graphic novel.Taymor told theater brokers that the production is something new: it "isn't a musical."

The original cast stars Reeve Carney in the lead role, with Jennifer Damiano as Mary Jane Watson, Patrick Page as the Green Goblin, T. V. Carpio as Arachne, Michael Mulheren as J. Jonah Jameson, Isabel Keating as Aunt May, and Ken Marks as Uncle Ben. Due to the physical demands of the role, Carney shares the role of Spider-Man with Matthew James Thomas, who is scheduled to appear in two of the performances each week after the official opening.

By early 2009, the Broadway production ran $25 million into debt, the New York Post reported, and work on it was suspended. In late 2009, Bono asked Michael Cohl to step in as producer, and by May 2010 Cohl had raised the money to proceed with the project, much of it from Jeremiah J. Harris, who is also listed as a producer.

The budget for the project was reported to be a record-setting $52 million, and the production is described as a large-scale "extravaganza" and a "circus rock-'n-roll drama," in which Spider-Man swings between skyscrapers.[ By November 2010, the production was estimated to cost $65 million. In addition, the show's unusually high running costs are reported to be about $1 million per week.

In February 2011, it was reported that playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was being asked by the producers if "he is interested and available to help rewrite the script" for Turn Off the Dark.Aguirre-Sacasa had written several stories for the Spider-Man comics, and revised the book for a production of It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman.On February 21, 2011, Paul Bogaev was hired "as a consultant to help improve the performance, vocal and orchestration arrangements, and sound quality of the songs and numbers."

Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming were cast as Mary Jane Watson and the Green Goblin, respectively, in June 2009,but Wood left in March 2010 and Cumming the following month when the show was delayed. When asked about his decision to leave the musical, Cumming stated "My GOD, that was a lucky escape. Jesus Christ! Talk about dodging a bullet there!" The new original cast was announced on August 16, 2010.