Playwright may be fixing up 'Spider-Man'

Is there a play doctor in Spidey's house? The producers of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" have hired playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to work on the book written by director Julie Taymor and Glen Berger, according to the entertainment website Deadline.com.

Asked to confirm the news, Rick Miramontez, spokesman for the troubled $65-million mega-musical, said "I'm afraid I have no comment for you."

Aguirre-Sacasa could be a logical choice to try to fix the show, which has been criticized both for its lack of comic-book cred and lack of coherence. Last summer, his rewrite of "It's a Bird . . . It's a Plane . . . It's Superman," the 1966 comic-strip musical flop by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse, was a success at the Dallas Theatre Center.

Aguirre-Sacasa, who graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 2003, was still writing for Marvel Comics when he made his off-Broadway debut in 2006 with "Based on a Totally True Story," a comedy about a young comic-book writer on the verge of his first big break. At the time he was writing the monthly series "The Sensational Spider-Man," a spinoff of Marvel's flagship title "The Amazing Spider-Man," and had previously written stories featuring the Fantastic Four and the X-Men character Nightcrawler. He also writes for HBO's "Big Love." A call to Aguirre-Sacasa's agent was not returned.

If hired, he would have just four more weeks of previews before the official opening Mar. 15. Most major critics clobbered the show Feb. 8, the day after it was last promised to open. Since then, audience focus groups have met and comment cards have appeared on Foxwoods Theatre seats. Ticket sales remain brisk. Box-office grosses last week were second only to "Wicked."