Wicked the Musical has been an international phenomenon since it debuted on October 8, 2003 at the George Gershwin Theatre on Broadway. Now, in the second decade of the new century, Wicked tickets continue to sell out for the same production at the same stage and there is still no end in site, this year, in 2010, or in the foreseeable future.
The musical was first conceived by Stephen Schwartz after he read the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked, a re-interpretation of the events leading up to the Wizard of Oz from a more feminist point of view. Schwartz already had established himself in Broadway as a lyricist and composer. He met Maguire and secured the rights to adapt the popular book into a stage musical.
Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, an acclaimed screenwriter with My So-Called Life, The Wonder Years, thirtysomething, and Once and Again on her resume (My So-Called Life earned an Emmy nomination), collaborated and parsed the novel's plot, taking a far more complicated story and breaking it down into a moving, simpler story more appropriate for the theater. This process of breaking down the novel and writing and rewriting dominated the creative's team life until 2003, when Wicked the Musical had financial backing and director Joe Mantello on board.
The newly imagined Wicked focused on the Wicked Witch during her college years, when she was known as the outcast Elphaba. She and vapid roommate Glinda, to become the Good Witch, forge a friendship after initially intensely disliking one another. The story leads up to the moments Dorothy's house comes crashing down and the girl from Kansas vanquishes the witch.
