Broadway's Spidey Claims Another Victim

Another day, another injury at Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark.   The NY Times is reporting that actress T.V. Carpio, who plays the villian Archane in the beleagured Broadway musical, suffered a neck injury while performing a fight sequence during a preview performance on March 16.  She is expected to be out of the show for at least two weeks.

Carpio is the second actress to play the role of Archane.  She replaced Natalie Mendoza, who left the show after suffering a concussion during a performance in December.  For those keeping score, Carpio is now the fifth Spiderman performer to be injured in the line of duty, the most serious being Spidey-double Christopher Tierney, who suffered multiple injuries (including a fractured skull) after a nearly 30-foot fall into the orchestra pit, also in December.  Earlier this month, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark was slammed with three serious safety violations from US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the production was fined upwards of $12,600.

What a mess.  Understudy America Olvio has stepped in to the Archane role in Carpio's absence, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed that she gets through her time in the show without any serious incident.  It is believed that Archane is on borrowed time anyway.  The character, who performs the critically savaged spiders-in-high-heels song "Deeply Furious" (I'm not making that up), is rumored to be on the chopping block when the show shuts down for major rewrites next month. 

The re-written, re-worked, re-scored, and now reportedly re-choreographed version of Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark is scheduled to open at the Foxwoods Theater on Broadway on June 14.  But if you would like to see the current version of this train wreck (which I will be doing next week for some reason), you have until April 18.  Walk, don't run.