Spider told by the Roman poet Ovid in his "Metamorphoses", Arachne was a Lydian girl who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. Arachne won, but Athena destroyed her tapestry out of jealousy, causing Arachne to hang herself. In an act of mercy, Athena brought Arachne back to life as the first spider. Stories about the trickster-spider Anansi are prominent in the folk traditions of the Asante people of Ghana. In some cultures, spiders have symbolized patience due to their hunting technique of setting webs and waiting for prey, as well as mischief and malice due to their venomous bites.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark of "Bouncing Off the Walls", "A Freak Like Me Needs Company", and "Spider-Man!". Syfy was "Turn Off the Dark"'s lead media partner, offering tickets to the show as prizes and airing commercials for the production. CBS' "60 Minutes" aired a feature on the production on November 28, 2010, the production's first preview performance, in which Lesley Stahl chronicled the creation of the musical. The show's first performance, on November 28, 2010, "garnered what was most likely the most press coverage of a first preview in history." Reactions to the first preview described the musical as "visually stunning," despite technical glitches