Just call her the little green lady that could fly high on her broom but take note that the story of Elphaba The Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz has now ran for over five thousand one hundred and twenty two performances. Wicked blew past Rent this past week in a performance at the historic Gershwin Theatre and became the 10th longest running production in Broadway history.
The numbers on Wicked are amazing. It began way back in October of 2003 with stand out performances in the musical by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. According to Theatermania the production has been done in over 100 cities and 14 countries. An amazing 49 million people have seen the musical and it has racked almost 49 million dollars. All that money in the bank could get Elphaba a lot of red slippers.
Wicked's music was written by Stephen Schwarz and the book is by Winnie Holzmann. The notable songs from the musical are, of course, Defying Gravity,and Popular.
The current production of Wicked is fronted by Carrie St Louis and Rachel Tucker who are Glinda and Elphaba. It is directed by by Joe Mantello. Also in this company's production are the two time Tony award winner Judy Kaye who takes the stage as Madame Morrible, Peter Scolari as the Wizard and the cast also incudes; Dawn Cantwell as Nessacrose, Zacary Noah Piser as Boq, Jonah Platt as Fiyeroand Michael Genet as Dr. Dillamond.
Wicked was originally a novel published by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. The novel is a revisionist look at the land and the characters of The Wizard of Oz. Accoding to wikipedia the proper and complete title of the novel is Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. The title pretty much sums up the attractions inherent in the story that destined it for Broadway and a long,long run.
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