by Lauren Showmaker
“We can’t all come and go by Bubble!” The famous Broadway musical Wicked celebrated its 20th year on Broadway on Monday, October 30th, 2023. This musical is based off of the Wizard of Oz fandom, before Dorothy hit the Land of Oz. The show is about two young witches: Elphaba, whose skin is green, and Glinda, who is blonde and beautiful. They dislike each other at first but soon form an unlikely bond. The musical follows them from their girlhood friendship and explains how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch and Glinda became the Good Witch.
Image Courtesy of Playbillstore.com
Wicked is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. The book is a revisionist take on The Wizard of Oz, both the L. Frank Baum novel and the Judy Garland-led film. Wicked features the score by Stephen Schwartz, and a book by Winnie Holzman. Directed by Joe Mantello and musical staging by Wayne Cilento, this outstanding musical took the Gershwin theatre in New York on October 30th, 2003, after completing pre-Broadway tryouts at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre in May and June of that year. The original cast consisted of Idina Menzel as Elphaba, Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda, Norbert Leo Butz as Fiyero, Joey Grey as the wizard, and many more extremely talented actors. The original Broadway production won three Tony Awards and seven Drama Desk Awards, while its original cast album received a Grammy Award. On April 11, 2023, with its 7,486th performance, it surpassed Cats to become Broadway’s fourth-longest running show.
Wicked on Broadway had its anniversary and celebrated it well. The show’s original Broadway stars, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, along with several former Elphabas, Glindas, Fiyeros and more walked the green carpet to see the 20th anniversary cast. The show had Alyssa Fox as Elphaba, McKenzie Kurtz as Glinda, Jordan Litz as Fiyero, John Dossett as The Wizard, Michele Pawk as Madame Morrible, Jake Pedersen as Boq, Kimber Elayne Sprawl as Nessarose and William Youmans as Doctor Dillamond. The fun started with a performance on Good Morning America Friday, September 27th. The following day, the breezeway outside the Gershwin Theatre was transformed into a “Wicked Day Block Party” with exclusive photo ops, music from DJ Mike Borowski and activations with 20th Anniversary partners like Hershey’s, Shake Shack, Catch ‘N Cream, TodayTix, and more. Two performances on Sunday were themed after Glinda and Elphaba. Fans who attended the “Pink Performance” were able to take home exclusive pink merch, a commemorative button, a signed card and a collectible Playbill. The “Green Performance,” at 8 p.m., gave the same gifts but themed around the color green.
On the night of the anniversary, Idina and Kristin were reunited with each other and the amazing Wicked stage, as they and cast and crew members gave some heartwarming remarks about the tremendous show.
“I remember I had to learn ‘Defying Gravity’ for my callback, and I started learning at home and I was crying to my e- husband, who was working on it with me at the time,” Idina Menzel tells People news. “I really wanted it so badly. I would get chills when the music would start and the intro! I had no idea what it would become but I knew it was something special. I needed this role to teach me something about life that I needed to learn.”
It was truly an amazing day for the musical, and the show is definitely going to have more shows to come. You can see the show on Broadway in New York City at the Gershwin theatre, or you can see it for a limited time at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from November 1, 2023 through November 26, 2023.
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