

The most exciting thing about Broadway's "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" has been the legal battle taking place off stage. On Friday, lawyers for Julie Taymor, the ousted director of the mega-musical, fired the latest salvo in the ongoing fight, filing papers in a federal court in response to a countersuit from the show's producers.

Taymor's lawyers claim in the document that producers "fraudulently induced" her to continue working on the musical even though they were "secretly conspiring to oust Taymor and use and change her work without pay."

The papers also state that Taymor was fired in an attempt to blame the musical's problems on her, as well as for financial reasons.

The 46-page document, obtained by The Times, was filed Friday in a New York court. [Updated: Friday, 6:15 p.m.] A lawyer representing "Spider-Man" producers said in a statement that it is "very disheartening for the former director of the show to take no responsibility for the consequences of her actions while, at the same time, trying to claim credit for the show's success."

In Friday's filing, Taymor's lawyers addressed the existence of "Plan X," which they say was a plan to make changes to the musical without Taymor's knowledge during the show's preview period.

They claim that co-writer Glen Berger and set designer George Tsypin developed the plan in secret and reached out to producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah Harris, as well as Bono and the Edge, who wrote the score for the musical. (Tsypin had been a longtime collaborator and friend of Taymor.)