The Latest From New York

Numerous sources are reporting that playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has been or may be engaged to help rewrite the book of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway. He is perhaps the logical choice since in addition to plays, he has written Spider-Man comics.

But assuming the reports are true, it's odd to be bringing someone in now to rewrite the book unless (a) they're planning, despite promises to the contrary, to delay the opening again or (b) they're only expecting him to participate in small dialogue rewrites. The show is scheduled to open March 15. That's less than a month from now and it's pretty late in the game to be making major alterations in the book. It would be even if this was a simple musical with simple sets, simple staging and no complicated special effects. I haven't seen the show but I'll wager they're severely limited as to what they can change if they're going to freeze things in time to open on 3/15.

Then again, maybe they're not going to freeze the show. Broadway tradition is that you don't make significant revisions after Opening Night…but this show has already broken all sorts of Broadway traditions. Maybe they're just going to go on fixing and changing things even after they open.

By the by: I must admit that while I've written a lot here about this show, I find myself largely uninterested in going to see it. If it's still running the next time I'm in New York (no idea when that'll be), I might go or I might not. I'm probably more interested in reading that book that you just know somebody's already working on about how this became the biggest surprise smash hit in the history of American theater…or the biggest flop.