Read Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History for Free Online

vengeance-steeped hellscape . . . well, you’d think, at the very least, it would take a couple dozen implausible plot twists. But no, it just proceeds, step by sensible step. Hooved swamp dwellers evolve into humpback whales. Earnest intentions turn into intractable wars. I’ve never written nonfiction before, but I can tell you the fiction-teller’s directive for millennia has been to simply copy the way life unfolds; to wend an ever-flowing series of circumstances from a beginning to a very different endpoint and make every bend and cataract feel inevitable. These things happen. Just ask any divorcée about her wedding day. These things happen. All the time. Rewind. Play again. We were four jolly sailors, four imperturbable Argonauts set to capture the Golden Fleece. Full of passion, unencumbered by cool, we were also—and this is painfully clear—four geeks. And all I know is . . . those friends will keep dancing and laughing in that Central Park penthouse, but they’ll never be anything again but ghosts.
    Now Bono was playing a clip from (of all things) The Matrix . He and Edge selected a tune by Radiohead to mix into the scene. The effect was inspirational, mysterious. Bono and Edge had pinpointed a mood for the song they were going to write that would carry an audience from the nihilism sparked by Uncle Ben’s death toward the musical’s defining moment—when Peter vows to fight in the name of love and justice as Spider-Man.
    “Rise Above,” suggested Bono. “Rise above the difficulties around you. Above the sadness within you. Be your better self .”
    The new anthem for our musical was born.
    The rest of the summit was spent chewing over plot points.From one scene to the next Edge and Bono dove into the weeds of dramaturgy with the ardor of regional theatre literary managers.
    Also, with nary a half-minute of discussion, the musical’s title was decided upon. Bono and Edge suggested it. It was inspired by the bedtime request of the young daughter of a friend of theirs.
    So, good, now the project felt a little more real—we had a title. But it was a secret title. And it would be a secret for four more years. No document could contain the title, lest we blow the surprise. Later the title would blaze with unintentional irony. After that, the title would endure a fusillade of Internet mockery. Still later, the title would point the way to a new beginning for the show. But on that day, all we knew was that we woke up that morning thinking about Spider-Man, and went to sleep that night thinking excitedly about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
    •     •     •
    We were going to land this show right in the middle of the zeitgeist. Gordon Cox was reporting in Variety how “musicals are once again becoming part of the pop-culture consciousness,” with musicals referenced in everything from The Sopranos to Gap Khaki advertisements and the music videos of Beyoncé. Broadway musicals took in a record $850 million in the 2006–07 season alone.
    I finished a draft of the whole script by the beginning of 2007. We were seven months away from the big presentation that would showcase a revised script and all the completed music in front of our investors. Right, yes. The investors . David Garfinkle had tapped a network of monied folk based mainly in his hometown of Chicago to put up the funds for the show, and they were anxious to see what their money had bought them to date.
    So in January 2007, our two producers, along with Julie and me, went to Ireland for another summit with the boys and to get anupdate on their progress. After a bracing hill climb through gorse and sheep dung with Julie leading the way like Tenzing Norgay and with David Garfinkle laboring behind in dress shoes, we rang Bono’s bell, and then joined him for a stroll to Edge’s house down the road, discussing on the way how the Democratic Primary was shaping up to be a battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. “Oh, it’s