Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History (29 page)

This is the moment,
I thought.
Two thousand days ago Bono looked me right in the eyes and said, “This show has to be brilliant.” He was right then. And I was right now. The time for pussyfooting was over.

“Bono, there’s a new idea, and it’ll fix everything. Did Michael not tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything.”

I glanced toward the door. It was shut. The VIP room was empty but for the three of us.

“Well . . .”

Bono sat up. Edge was looking at me intently.

“Just consider
this
—”

WHAM!
The door swung open and Julie breezed into the room.

Did she hear us?
No, because she immediately launched into a discussion of the lyrics. But that discussion was brief because she said it was time for the Spotted Pig. I had no idea what she was talking about. I finally gathered that it was a restaurant in the West Village. Bono was a part owner. The whole company had been invited to a party there in lieu of the opening night party we were going to have on January 11 before opening night got postponed. The two lads and Julie and I were heading toward the town car that would take us down to the Village. I desperately needed twenty minutes alone with Bono and Edge to lay out Plan X, but I had no idea how
to arrange that. Suddenly Julie was being stopped by Kat Purvis, who needed to discuss a brief scheduling matter with Julie.

“Shall we wait for you?” asked Bono.

“I’ll meet you down there!” Julie said.

Perfect
.

A couple of the composers’ assistants would be riding with us. So as we stepped into the car, Edge whispered that we needed to be a little circumspect. He then said aloud as the car turned down Ninth Avenue, “So, Glen . . . in
future
productions of the show, how might you see the plot possibly changing? Just as something to consider?”

I dove into Plan X, taking the composers point by point through the whole show, needing to be thorough yet knowing time was tight, and grateful for some gridlock south of Fourteenth Street. The outline was fresh in my mind, and it was so
sensible
that it was easy to spin the tale with confidence and clarity, and other than asking a question or two, Edge and Bono listened in attentive silence.

The town car arrived at the Spotted Pig, and now it was idling. Bono dramatically turned around from his front seat. His hand gripped mine.

“I’m in
.
”

As we got out of the car, Bono and Edge said they would kick the plan’s tires. And when we were absolutely confident that it was the way to go, we would present it to Julie.
But it had better be soon,
I thought. Bono and Edge were leaving the country in four days.

The room upstairs at the Spotted Pig was already packed with company members taking advantage of the open bar and thrilled that the next day was a day off. Not only had they been putting on shows every night, they had been required to attend rehearsals
every day. And for a typical show, that grueling double-duty would have been ending
that night
. Had we just opened, the exhausted actors and dancers would now be relaxing into the groove of an eight-show-a-week schedule, interspersed with light brush-up rehearsals. Instead, they had another whole month of intensive rehearsals. From this point forward, every Goodwill Point got spent at double the rate.

It was a spirited party. Chris Tierney was there, which was putting a smile on everyone’s faces. But it was also a party laced with trepidation. Julie and Michael had been back in New York a week and yet, to the
Turn Off the Dark
company, there seemed to be no indication that anything significant in the show was changing.

In the middle of the party, Julie delivered a speech to the assembled. Her confidence was unsteady, and she was barely trying to hide it. She told the cast it didn’t matter what the public thought of the musical. What mattered was that we were staying true to our original vision. Her intent was to counsel the actors not to get caught up in the negative press. She wanted to rally us all around the tabernacle of Art. But it was a grave miscalculation. Her speech made it appear as if she didn’t care if the show closed. She seemed to be telegraphing to everyone in the room that she had no intention of “fixing” the show.

Edge, astonished, turned to manager Paul McGuinness. “I can’t believe she just said that.”

To Edge, Julie’s speech seemed to confirm that she knew the ship was sinking, but was resigned to that fate.

I was ready to leave. It was crowded and loud in the room so, as I was saying goodbye to Edge, he brought his mouth close to my ear to say:

“As her partners and as her friends, it is
right
to support Julie and her vision.
But
 . . . it is also
right
 . . . at the same time . . . to
continue on a separate track and develop this other plan, should we need it.”

For as long as I had known him, Edge had struck me as a thoughtful man, an ethical man. A serious man. You couldn’t listen to Edge and say the fellow wasn’t conscientious. If he was telling me that what we should do was take a “twin-track” approach, then there had to be rectitude to it.

And as I was leaving, Bono told me that Wednesday would be the day. January 12. I passed the information on to George Tsypin and Rob Bissinger in an e-mail. The big meeting—the day of reckoning—would be Wednesday. And then at the bottom of the e-mail I hastened to add (because almost every letter and conversation had to end with it now):
“. . . But keep it under the hat.”

I
’m going to give you some advice. Whatever you do, whatever happens,
stick with Julie.

Like a kiddie alarm clock set for two thousand days in the future, Seth Gelblum’s words were now shrill bells in my head. Danny Ezralow had found a large coin on the street the week before and made a point of showing it to me. I wanted to keep the coin because to me it seemed to possess a real talismanic aura. But Danny thought so too, so he kept it. We were both clearly strung-out, because the coin was probably just something that fell out of the pocket of an AA member. It had a bunch of enigmatic symbols on one side, and Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer” on the other.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Danny didn’t say it, but he was showing me this coin because of Plan X. I was onto him.

“Glen, you’re depressed. Everyone can see it. Julie’s been talking to me about it. You need to figure out how to find serenity in all this.”

He was right. I
was
depressed. But why was “serenity” the answer? After all, they only called it the Serenity Prayer because the “serenity” bit came first. If the clauses had been switched, they’d be calling it the Courage Prayer. The unspoken subtext for our entire conversation was:

“See?! The coin is a clarion call to me to push and keep pushing for Plan X.”

“No, you idiot, the coin is telling you
to back off
.”

Plan X was designed to create a narrative framework that would justify keeping as many of the eye-catching Arachne set pieces as possible while minimizing the technical hurdles. But the simple idea of sticking the Spidey-Goblin fight at the end of the show was already in the air. It had been suggested by fans on blogs. Patrick Page even took a discreet moment at the Spotted Pig party to float the notion to Michael Cohl and Edge. And on the afternoon of January 11, Julie herself mentioned the idea in passing in the lobby of the Foxwoods.

“Well . . . uh . . . funny enough . . .” I said, scratching my head, “it
would
solve a lot of the problems that we—”

“Oh, Glen,” she interrupted, sounding sympathetic and weary, “don’t think about that now.”

She then warned me never to mention the idea to Michael or Jere.

“Once you open that door, they’ll want to do it. And then?
Forget
it. It’ll be a
theme-park
show. This is how shows die. When people start abandoning the vision that got us here.”

I was listening to her, trying to figure out:
Did she know about Plan X?
As for Julie, she was probing, trying to figure out:
Was he still with me?

“All I know is,” she added, “if that’s what they want to do, then I’m walking.”

“
Really?
You’d . . .
walk
?”

“Actually,
no
—I wouldn’t walk. They would have to fire me.”

“Well, it’s not like they’re gonna get another director.”

“Exactly
.
”

Julie had already gamed it out.
And now she was confidently heading into the auditorium to supervise the rehearsal. Moments later Michael Cohl called me. He said the investors had just unanimously voted to allow the producers to shut down the show.
If it came to that
. But, Michael added, he wasn’t at all convinced it needed to come to that.

I’ll never convince these guys. Danny was right—maybe it was time to switch from courage to serenity.
Glenn Beck’s radio show the next morning (January 12) wasn’t helping my case. The Tea Party movement torchbearer saw our musical the day before. “By far the best show I’ve ever seen. . . . Give a kidney to go see
Spider-Man
. I’m telling you . . . this is the
Phantom
of the twenty-first century,” he said.

Mr. Beck devoted thirty minutes of his program to praising our show. To six million loyal listeners, he proclaimed
Turn Off the Dark
“the eighth wonder of the world.” Michael Cohl called the conspicuous jump in ticket sales that week “the Beck Bump.” Parched for an unabashed and vocal proponent of her show, Julie drank in the words of Mr. Beck, who gushed: “ ‘Rise Above’ is the song for today: You have a
choice
to make. You can
be
the hero.”

“I have to admit, Glen,” Julie said to me. “He
gets
it.”

Later that day, Julie assembled all the female dancers in the VIP room so she could bring them up-to-date on her new vision for “Deeply Furious.” I had wanted her to cut the number. Instead? She was
expanding
it.

I clomped up the stairs back to the lobby, where Michael and Jere were chatting. As promised by Bono back at the Spotted Pig, tonight, post-performance, was when the producers and composers intended to have the mother of all meetings, when Plan X was finally going to get aired and all this sordid conspiring would end. But Michael wondered if maybe
now
might be a good time to grab a moment with Julie, so that the producers and writers could begin the heart-to-heart. Bono could join in later.

“Julie was just downstairs,” I told him eagerly.

“Great. I’ll go check if she has a minute. Stay here,” he instructed.

Michael headed downstairs toward the dressing rooms. Minutes went by. Michael still hadn’t returned. I went down the stairs and tiptoed toward the closed door of the VIP room, where I rested an ear.

I could hear Michael’s voice. It was RAISED. It was interrupted by Julie’s voice, which was AGGRIEVED. Now Michael’s voice was SCOFFING. Julie’s was SCATHING. Michael’s was CONTEMPTUOUS. Julie’s was—no, I wasn’t gonna stick around any longer. I crept away. No way was I getting in the middle of that. Kat Purvis, standing outside the stage manager’s office, shot me a little grin. “Any idea what they’re talking about in there?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“I saw Michael come down here. He found Julie, and it went from zero to a hundred like
that
. They’ve been in that room ever since.”

I found Michael an hour later. He was still under the influence of adrenaline and other aftereffects of the blowup.

“Was it over Plan X?” I asked, hopefully.

“I didn’t even
get
to that! She quit the show twice before I even brought it up! I had to chase her back from the elevator each time.
And I’ll tell you this
—the next time she quits,
I’m not chasing after her
.”

After the show, I headed to the VIP room, expecting the room to be empty except for a few serious people ready to deal with some serious issues. Instead, it was a party, with actual VIPs getting drinks at the bar and showing no signs of leaving. Julie was there, but she said she was heading home in a moment. Not only was she giving no indication of the rumpus between her and Michael earlier that day, she didn’t seem to know that there was supposed to be a meeting—
a really important meeting
—tonight. As in,
right now
. Michael murmured to me that the meeting wasn’t happening tonight. No one was really in the right frame of mind to have a serious talk. I wandered demoralized out of the room, only to see a man coming at me with a beautiful smile and an outstretched hand.

“You, sir, have written one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It’s going to be a huge hit, and I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.”

It was Glenn Beck. And he was saying everything—
everything
—a playwright dreams of hearing from an audience member. So I shook his hand, deeply gladdened. And then I bolted out of there, deeply confused.

•     •     •

Michael Cohl had an announcement the next evening at the nightly production meeting. Get out your calendars—opening night was moving from February 7 to March 15.

“March fifteenth,” one of the production managers mused aloud. “So we’ll be opening on the Ides of March.”

“I like that,” said Julie. “It’s got a good ring to it. Wait—what’s the Ides of March again?”

Someone piped up, “It’s when they murdered Caesar.”

“Uh, maybe I’m not so crazy about the Ides of March after all,” Julie joked, prompting laughter. Conspicuously uncomfortable laughter.