Free Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History by Glen Berger Page A

fine astronaut in 1962’s Project Mercury. Instead, born when he was, he became a Hollywood stunt coordinator, and designed the aerial feats in several movies including Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 .
    When he was tapped to design stunts for this Spidey musical, he appropriated an innovation from pro football coverage. TV networks had recently added a camera suspended by four cables above the playing field, which enabled an operator to send the suspended camera roving around the field via remote control.
    Scott Rogers figured what worked for a camera could work for a human being. The “four-point bushing system” he consequently devised was going to allow a Spider-Man or a Green Goblin or an Arachne to zip at fantastic speeds literally anywhere in the theatre. With an adversary hooked up to a separate flying system, complex aerial battles between two performers were now conceivable.
    Until now, Flying by Foy had maintained a virtual monopolyon theatrical flying systems. Back in 1953, Peter Foy developed a system to send Mary Martin and the Darling children whizzing through the air in Peter Pan . For the next half century, the company had been refining their systems in order to accommodate the needs of any large-scale theatrical production.
    But the heart of every Foy system was this: guys backstage hoisting ropes. Flying by Foy was always manually operated . For Scott to achieve the effects he was after with precision and reliability, computers were going to be necessary. Once programmed, the computers would deliver all the instructions to the winches and whatnot. But as a theatrical strategy, it was a leap into the unknown.
    “That flip over the Goblin—that’s called a ‘back-gainer,’ ” explained Scott with some pride in his voice.
    Would we be able to duplicate this sequence in the actual theatre? He wasn’t sure yet. But the sequence gave everyone in that soundstage plenty of confidence that something pretty thrilling would be devised. Julie asked for a slight adjustment in Goblin’s flight pattern, and Scott said they’d get right on it, but it could take a while, because they’d have to program the new code into the computer.
    This was the downside to bringing computers into the game. Programming took ages, and it was ratcheting up the anxiety levels of David Garfinkle and Martin McCallum. Nearly all the programming accomplished in this workshop would have to be redone once an actual theatre was found, since the new dimensions would require new algorithms. Would there be enough time to reenter all the computer code? What happened if an adjustment to a flying sequence was required at the last minute? Disastrous delays? Hope for the best, I guess. In the meantime, Scott would keep working, alongside Jaque Paquin—our long-haired, thick-bearded Québécois aerial rigger from Cirque du Soleil.
    Michael Curry, meanwhile, was occupying himself with the challenge of making a web-shooter for Spider-Man. Michael was the man who devised, with Julie, all the puppet-work on The Lion King . Resembling a Wings - era Paul McCartney, he was the sort of fellow who sketched out solutions on the backs of napkins. Actual solutions. He intuitively understood how different materials behaved. He grasped the physics behind the fluttering of fabric. He worked with the universal laws that made an insect leg extend just so, or eagle feathers unfurl, or any of the engineering and aesthetic marvels all around us that we generally take for granted until we see their essence presented on a stage.
    It was easy to see why he and Julie made for such felicitous partners on The Lion King. Michael’s engineering know-how was coupled with the sort of attitude that Julie prizes. The attitude that the unsolved was merely the not-yet-solved. The soon-to-be-solved. (Why Michael Curry left Turn Off the Dark —resulting in a number of never -to-be-solved issues—we’ll get to in a bit.)
    So while we waited for the next aerial demonstration, we