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At $60 million, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” is one of the most expensive shows to grace Broadway musical history. Now it’s also the most cursed. In the production’s latest stroke of bad luck, an actor plunged 20 to 30 feet from a platform into a pit beneath the stage in Monday night’s preview performance.
The accident happened seven minutes before the show’s end, when Spidey’s love interest, Mary Jane, runs up a ramp, followed by the stunt double in a Spider-Man costume, and both jump off. Mary Jane’s harness held, but the stunt man’s sadly didn’t. The show was stopped as actor Christopher Tierney was put on a stretcher and sent via ambulance to Bellevue Hospital Center.
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Matthew Smith, an audience member told the New York Times in an interview outside the theater: “It looked like it was supposed to happen. But he fell at a faster pace. It didn’t look right.”
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With music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge, the show’s production has been haunted by technical problems and cast injuries, including broken bones and a concussion. And for those keen to see the real opening performance, well it looks like the opening date is yet again delayed and won’t open until Feb 7.