Wicked the Musical is the theatrical creation from Stephen Schwartz (music and lyrics) and Winnie Holzman (book) taken from the pages of Wicked, the Gregory Maguire novel offering a new take on the world created by L. Frank Baum and put to Technicolor in the 1939 film the Wizard of Oz. Wicked tickets have sold no matter where there musical has gone and no matter what language the performers have been singing the lyrics.
Schwartz first read Maguire's novel in 1995 while on vacation. Three years later he met the writer and secured the rights to the novel for use as a stage production. The novel included a dizzying world of twisted plots, so Schwartz enlisted the help of Winnie Holzman to simplify the story into a two hour musical. Holman had previously earned acclaim as a writer for My So-Called Life, The Wonder Years, thirtysomething, and Once and Again. Wicked the Musical would be Holzman's first Broadway entry.
The result is a musical based very loosely on the book. Wicked the Musical offered a much brighter version of Oz than Maguire. Yes, Elphaba would become the Wicked Witch of the West, but the development of her relationship with Galinda (who would become Glinda) would be different, Fiyero's path would differ, and the end would be completely re-imagined. Wicked the Musical became its own entity, spurring sales of the book, but offering something different with Wicked tickets.
The musical went through many developmental workshops, workshops that utilized some of the talent that would take the stage, like Kristin Chenoweth reading as Glinda and Stephanie J. Block reading as Elphaba (though she did not debut the role she would later play the Wicked Witch after a cast change).
