What's Ailing Spider-Man the Musical?
Dec. 21, 2010— -- The woes continue for troubled Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," which was beset by its fourth accident.
An actor performing an aerial stunt during Monday night's preview plunged 20 to 30 feet and was taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries, fire department officials told WABC-TV.
Now the labor union representing the cast has asked that the show not go on until more safety measures are in place.
In a statement to ABCNews.com, Actor's Equity, the union representing the actors, said, "Actors' Equity Association is working with management of Spider-Man and the Department of Labor to ensure that performances will not resume until back-up safety measures are in place."
On Monday night, the show's spokesman Rick Miramontez released a statement saying a 31-year-old actor fell "several feet from a platform approximately seven minutes before the end of the performance, and the show was stopped."
"All signs were good as he was taken to the hospital for observation," Miramontez added.
Officials did not release the actor's name, but a performer in the show identified him as Christopher Tierney. Tierney is the show's main aerialist and performs stunts for the roles of Spider-Man and the villains Meeks and Kraven.
An audience member told WABC that a cable connected to his harness appeared to have snapped.
"Spider-Man was about to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge to go catch Mary Jane," the audience member said. "She was falling in slow motion. He was supposed to swoop down and catch her. Instead his safety cord or cable seemed to have broke, and he went flying into the audience and he crashed down into a hole in the set."
The accident occured about 10:45 p.m., toward the end of the performance, and producers immediately halted the show and firefighters were called to Broadway's Foxwoods Theatre.
Monday's fall was the latest in a series of setbacks for the $65 million show -- the most expensive in Broadway history -- which teams Bono and The Edge from U2 with famed stage and film director Julie Taymor.
Producers had recently pushed back the show's opening night from Jan. 11 to Feb. 7 and it's unclear if the next performance, scheduled for Wednesday, will go on.
Before Monday's incident, Taymor, the Tony Award-winning director of "The Lion King" and the Oscar-nominated "Frieda," told entertainment blogger Roger Friedman that the delayed opening was a good thing.
"We're happy about it," she is quoted as saying in a story posted on Showbiz411.com. She told Friedman that the extra time would give the show's organizers extra breathing room to make more changes.
"This isn't an adaptation of a movie, like most musicals these days," Taymor said. "This is all totally original, from scratch."
