NEWSJulie Taymor Replaced By New "Creative Team" in 'Spider-Man' Musical
March 10 2011, Published 3:48 p.m. ET
Julie Taymor will no longer be directing Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical and instead a "newly expanded creative team" will be taking over.
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Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris, the lead producers of the musical, announced on Wednesday that a new "creative team" would be put in place for the show. This team will be making significant revisions to productions before opening night, which was previously set for March 15, 2011 and now has been pushed back to early summer, 2011.
Philip William McKinley and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa will be implementing new staging and book rewrites and musical consultants, Paul Bogaev and Peter Hylenski have also been brought on.
"The additional time commitment required by this new plan will make it impossible for director and co-book writer Julie Taymor to continue on in her day-to-day duties with the production," a press release for the show states.
However, Cohl and Harris said in a joint statement, "Julie Taymor is not leaving the creative team. Her vision has been at the heart of this production since its inception and will continue to be so. Julie's previous commitments mean that past March 15th, she cannot work the 24/7 necessary to make the changes in the production in order to be ready for our opening. We cannot exaggerate how technically difficult it is to make such changes to a show of this complexity, so it's with great pride that we announce that Phil McKinley is joining the creative team. Phil is hugely experienced with productions of this scale and is exactly what SPIDER-MAN Turn off the Dark needs right now.”
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Is it just us, or does that sound like a polite way of saying Phil will be replacing Julie?
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Bono and The Edge weighed in too, adding, “Julie is a truly gifted and imaginative director. This is an epic ride, and the standing ovations we have seen from the preview audiences have confirmed our absolute faith in the project. We are listening and learning and, as a result, we have a couple of new songs we are very very excited about putting into the mix. All of us on the creative team are committed to taking SPIDER-MAN to the next level. We are confident it will reach its full potential and when it does, it will open.”
What do you think of the latest Spider-Man update?
