Wickedly Obsessed
Miscellaneous / August 10, 2012

Each summer one of the big musicals comes to Montreal for a month, and this year it was one of my favourites; Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked. I’ve seen this show on Broadway (twice) and Toronto, and still love it. For those of you not familiar with the show, it is based on Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked. This is a splinter-sharp prequel to The Wizard of Oz, focussing on the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West. Stephen Schwartz collaborated with Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book (i.e. the storyline and dialogue) for the musical. They made the decision to tone down the political undertone of the book and to focus on the friendship between Elphaba, the green skinned girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and social butterfly Galinda (later Glinda the Good). I understand this is in no small part due to the chemistry between Kristin Chenoweth and Stephanie J Block during the initial workshops, so my thanks to those two fine actresses. Now, this isn’t my favourite musical in terms of score – currently that would probably be Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies – but having said that, there are a few hummable tunes…