Fifteen years ago, one of the top films in the land was \u201cFinding Nemo\u201d and Shania Twain played the Super Bowl halftime show. 50 Cent\u2019s \u201cGet Rich or Die Tryin\u2019\u201d was a hit album and a couple of witches-to-be took over Broadway.<\/p>\n
The musical \u201cWicked\u201d shook off some tepid reviews to roar into Broadway history and this Monday is celebrating its coming-of-age with a Halloween-themed NBC special starring its original stars Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, as well as Ariana Grande.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s been 15 years. I think it was yesterday. And yet it feels like it\u2019s been 15 years. So there\u2019s that I\u2019m battling in my brain,\u201d says Chenoweth, laughing. \u201cI just wanted to be in a show that someone would have heard of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mission, accomplished: \u201cWicked\u201d is Broadway\u2019s sixth longest running show and is regularly sold out, last week commanding a $120 average ticket. There is currently a North American tour, a West End production and another touring the United Kingdom. The ice cream company Ben & Jerry\u2019s has launched a special sandwich in its honor.<\/p>\n
The musical reimagines the relationship between the Good Witch of the North (Chenoweth) and the Wicked Witch of the East (Menzel), who were introduced in L. Frank Baum\u2019s \u201cThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz\u201d and immortalized in a 1939 film adaptation. The songs by Stephen Schwartz include \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d \u2033Popular\u201d and \u201cFor Good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was something special,\u201d says Menzel, who had already achieved success in \u201cRent\u201d when she tried out for \u201cWicked\u201d director Joe Mantello. She said she shook while rehearsing the songs: \u201cI knew I thought it was important and it moved me when I first auditioned and got a call-back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics were not always kind, with The New York Times sniffing that the musical \u201cdoes not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical.\u201d Variety called it \u201clumbering, overstuffed\u201d and New York\u2019s Daily News described it as \u201can interminable show with no dramatic logic or emotional center.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans politely disagreed. The show went on to win a Grammy Award and three Tony Awards, opening in 16 countries including Brazil, South Korea, Germany, Japan, Australia and Latin America.<\/p>\n
The musical premiered long before the #MeToo movement but has benefited from its focus on two young women \u2014 one seemingly perfect in looks and popularity, the other a restless, green-skinned outsider \u2014 finding their voices and forging a bond despite their differences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the piece, to how good \u2018Wicked\u2019 is that 15 years later, it\u2019s even more important and really resonates with this movement that we\u2019re in. And how wonderful to have two female-centric characters who end up supporting each other and loving each other and changing each other and accepting in each other what makes them different and special,\u201d says Menzel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also really timely because we have a voice right now and \u2018Wicked\u2019 is about not being ashamed to have that voice when it\u2019s powerful and even angry and fierce. We can\u2019t be afraid of how that will be perceived. We have to own that. Harnessing that kind of power is what really makes change and what true beauty is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chenoweth agrees: \u201cI love that \u2018Wicked\u2019 was done and such a success and that movies like \u2018Frozen\u2019 are done because it\u2019s a recurring theme to our new generation of girls \u2014 be strong, be courageous, stick up for who you are and what you are and what you believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC\u2019s special was filmed Oct. 16 not at Broadway\u2019s \u201cWicked\u201d home in the Gershwin Theatre but in the empty Marquis Theatre. \u201cA Very Wicked Halloween\u201d will also feature Pentatonix, Adam Lambert and Ledisi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWicked\u201d came at an important time for Menzel, whose career was struggling after she was dropped by her record company. The character of Elphaba was the perfect role for the actress, who would go on to sing \u201cLet It Go\u201d for \u201cFrozen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really insecure. I hadn\u2019t worked in a little bit and so I was trying to find my process. I was competing and I was battling my own insecurities just like my character was.\u201d Menzel would win a Tony for the role.<\/p>\n
Chenoweth, a Tony- and Emmy Award-winner who would go on to have parts on \u201cThe West Wing,\u201d \u2033Glee\u201d and NBC\u2019s \u201cHairspray Live!,\u201d remembers first getting a taste of \u201cWicked\u201d when Schwartz asking her to stop by his Los Angeles home to hear him sing her \u201cPopular.\u201d She adored it but made it her own by adding a little flip, making it \u201cpop-u-lar.\u201d She insists she knew \u201cWicked\u201d was going to be big.<\/p>\n
Just how big?<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember thinking: \u2018This is so big. I feel this could be big. Like, I think this could be \u2018Cats,\u2019\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll leave you with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fifteen years ago, one of the top films in the land was \u201cFinding Nemo\u201d and Shania Twain played the Super Bowl halftime show. 50 Cent\u2019s \u201cGet Rich or Die Tryin\u2019\u201d was a hit album and a couple of witches-to-be took over Broadway. The musical \u201cWicked\u201d shook off some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[46,51],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-interviews","tag-46","tag-wicked-15"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/800.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-cR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}